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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

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

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

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 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial 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 rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, 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 unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently