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The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen 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 weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion 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: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

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 likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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