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The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” 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 initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration 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 examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading 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