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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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 detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is looking around 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 persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently