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The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

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 threats, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

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 authoritarians overseas.

“The government is observing at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions 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 documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“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 Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently