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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

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

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase 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.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is observing 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.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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