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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

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

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

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

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently