🔗 Share this article

Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase 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.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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