🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

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

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, 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 the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries 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 assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently