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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

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 the Russian, 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 unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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