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

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion 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 country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power 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 risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently