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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, 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 national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats 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 threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently