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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity 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, highly concerning 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 “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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