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The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

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 “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call last week was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts 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 president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing 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: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding 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 the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government'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