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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

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.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite 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 provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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