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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently