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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal 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 state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is observing at these successes and failures. 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 Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim 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 legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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