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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

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

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts 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 researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, 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 residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government'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