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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts 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 president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy 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.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented 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 pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection 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 criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently