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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

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

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched 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 nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently