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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result 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 rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. 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.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “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 murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently