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The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising 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 the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone understands 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 those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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