🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

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

Government Goals

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