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

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high 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 fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“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 judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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