🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media call last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats 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 a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 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 guarded 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 spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently