Trump Figures Back El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Target US Judiciary

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

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project 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 the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models 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 legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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