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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language 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 supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts 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 the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial 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 rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of 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 “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 residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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