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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information 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. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language 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 allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around 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.

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

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

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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