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The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State 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 pass any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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