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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur 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 resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

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

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive 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 ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs 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 escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently