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The US President rarely accepts counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating 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 the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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