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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands 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.”

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

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

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

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

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

Government Goals

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