Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire 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 follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”
His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.
Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.
The president's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations 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 court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.
The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.
The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.
Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.
Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.
Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.
The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.
Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.
In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”
Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”
This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.
In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.
The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.
Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.
Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models 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.
Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.
“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”
The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”
Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.
She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.
“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.
“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”
On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently
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