Trump Figures Back El Salvador Leader's Call for Trump to Target American Judges

Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers 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 child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently