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The US President rarely accepts advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments 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 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 escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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