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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands 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 dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently