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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

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 abroad.

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

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

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, 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