🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently