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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team 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 undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, 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 surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” 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 federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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