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The US President rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' 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 current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats 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 Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant 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 federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently