🔗 Share this article

The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

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

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The government is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority 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 authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening 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.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently