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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase 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 the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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