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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

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

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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