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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

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

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% 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 co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

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 dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“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 undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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