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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

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

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes and setbacks. 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 Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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