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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe 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' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. 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 court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

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

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently