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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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