🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 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 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive 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 of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

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

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 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 Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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