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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation 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 Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial 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 rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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