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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a string 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 his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates 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 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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