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The US President rarely accepts advice, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

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

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy 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 sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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