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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, 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. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 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 Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently