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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

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

“They persist in reframe 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' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation 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 democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology 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 dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently