🔗 Share this article

The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more 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 “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state 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 “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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