🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

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

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting 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 presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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