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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched 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 rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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