Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.
But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”
The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.
Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.
The president's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.
The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.
The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.
The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.
Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.
Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.
The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.
Experts say 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 “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”
That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.
In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.
The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.
Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.
Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.
“The government is observing at these successes and failures. 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 relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.
“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”
The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”
Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.
She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.
“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.
“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”
Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently
Elara is a financial strategist with over a decade of experience in wealth management and entrepreneurship.
