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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, 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 long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples 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 legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

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 warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently