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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned 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 pass any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief 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 sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology 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 rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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