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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

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

“The government is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

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

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently