Trump Figures Back El Salvador Leader's Call for US President to Crack Down on American Judges

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president 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 boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

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 using comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently