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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move echoed 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.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

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

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

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer 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 the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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