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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump 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 examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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