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The US President rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, 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 the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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