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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

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

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president'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 ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government 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.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate 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: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts 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.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science 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 escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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