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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

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

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive 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 legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. 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 the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

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

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently