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The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise 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 removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

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

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

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

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently