🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

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

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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