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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from 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 local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

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

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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