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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

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

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government'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 threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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