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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed 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 US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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 judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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