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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to 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 over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

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

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, 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 persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy 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

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism 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 very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently