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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

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

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” 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 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

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

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

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

Administration Aims

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