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The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the US president.

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

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “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 killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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