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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's objectives, 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