🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

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

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

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

Administration Aims

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