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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government'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