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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts 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.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

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

Government Goals

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