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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations 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 federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

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

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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