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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians 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 undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial 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 institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

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

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently