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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently