🔗 Share this article

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy 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, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, 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 judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently