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The US President is not typically known for counsel, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 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 threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “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 Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently