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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected 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 inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” 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 equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently