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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative 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 the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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