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The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on 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 garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

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

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

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

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

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

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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