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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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