Trump Figures Back Bukele's Call for US President to Crack Down on American Judiciary

The US President rarely accepts advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president 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 US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

“The government is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” 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 persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. 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, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats 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 a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently