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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation 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 White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration 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 judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president 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. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts 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, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All 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 are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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