🔗 Share this article

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

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years 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 parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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