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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. 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 democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. 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 police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently