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The US President is not typically known for counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

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

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

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

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, 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