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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently