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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say 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 executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim 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 authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” 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 so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government'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