🔗 Share this article

The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

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

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online 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 stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

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

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument 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 legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation 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 court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently