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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on 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 likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“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 Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, 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 so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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