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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several 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 the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity 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 judicial review and for democracy.”

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 warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks 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