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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

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

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, 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 online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power 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 institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

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