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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

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

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric 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 supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

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

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is observing at these successes and failures. 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 claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating 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' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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