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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently