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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week 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 “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, 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 rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation 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 president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

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

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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