🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

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

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently