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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

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

“The government is observing 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.

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently