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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics 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.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

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

“All 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 institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently