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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

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

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term in the face of 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 angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation 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 democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On 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