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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging 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 received backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government'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 threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

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 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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