🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

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

Meghan 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 strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently