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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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