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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. 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 claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president 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 legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. 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 federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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