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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

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

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine 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 studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize 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 discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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