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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power 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 legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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