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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach 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 received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

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

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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