🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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