🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

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

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power 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 weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks 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