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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence 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 countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats 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 president to remove judges the administration opposes.

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

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently