🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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