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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move 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 boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring 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 country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity 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, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant 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 these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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