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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, 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 brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated 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 returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align 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 January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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