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The US President rarely accepts counsel, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard 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 think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently