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The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt 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 one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts 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 social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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