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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

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

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient 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. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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