Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.
But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”
His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.
Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.
Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.
Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.
Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.
Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.
Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.
According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.
The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.
Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.
In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”
Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”
This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.
In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.
The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.
Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.
Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.
“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.
Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.
“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”
Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”
Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, 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 series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.
“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.
“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”
Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently
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