🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently