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The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

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

The call for Trump 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 amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models 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 legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently