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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

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

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues 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 pass any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently