Trump Figures Endorse El Salvador Leader's Call for US President to Target American Judiciary

The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation'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 Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

International Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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