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

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation 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 alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls 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.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“The government is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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