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The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

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

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims 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 transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on 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. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language 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 Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane 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 warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer 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 the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently