Trump Figures Back El Salvador Leader's Call for Trump to Crack Down on US Judiciary

Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “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 initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor 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 looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, 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 debate by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently