Trump Figures Back El Salvador Leader's Call for Trump to Crack Down on American Judiciary

The US President rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more 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 judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “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 discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” 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 pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently