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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

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

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say 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 claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment 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.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

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

“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats 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 Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently