Trump Figures Endorse El Salvador Leader's Call for US President to Target American Judiciary

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

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

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

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 abroad.

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

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

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, 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 pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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