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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise 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 impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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