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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants 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 Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration 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 characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment 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 founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation 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 judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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