🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed 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 comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating 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 January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

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

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is observing 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.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. 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.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently