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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents 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 on track to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight 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 Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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