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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

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

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the executive 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 capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently