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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 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 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi 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 one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently