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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

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

“The government is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine 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.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the administration’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