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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump 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 in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists 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 comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions 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 the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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