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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was one more in a long series 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 federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

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

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate 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 social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

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

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently