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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

“The government is looking around at these successes 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 persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs 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 highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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