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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

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

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

“The administration is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening 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.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently