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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, 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 the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

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

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently