🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently