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The US President rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to 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.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On 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