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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate 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 social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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