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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts 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 using similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, 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.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief 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 current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, 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 series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's aims, 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