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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, 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 pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

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

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly 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 emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently