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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” 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 GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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