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The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

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 March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán 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 unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son 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,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently