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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing 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 demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a result 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 highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% 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 the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats 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 court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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