🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

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

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding 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 the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently