🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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