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The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, 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 federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

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

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues 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 judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” 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 residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’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