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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks 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 disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The government is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology 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 warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone 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 these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently