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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university'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 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models 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 undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to 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.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor 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 spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently