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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt 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 emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

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 advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“The government is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments 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 global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, 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