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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest 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 his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial 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 weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

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

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All knows 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 federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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