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

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

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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 courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation 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 democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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