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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats 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 White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

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

“The government is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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