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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats 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 alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

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

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

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

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

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

Administration Aims

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