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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

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

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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