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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, 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 “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands 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 structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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