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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

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

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton'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 local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional 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 in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“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.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently