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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove 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 hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

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

“The administration is observing at these successes and failures. 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 persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing 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 public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, 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 the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently