🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

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

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

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

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently