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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation'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 move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

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

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority 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 judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” 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 unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, 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