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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements 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 attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently