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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib 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, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say 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 allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

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 president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is observing at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, 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 Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated 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 government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently