The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.
However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”
His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.
Experts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.
The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.
The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.
The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.
The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.
Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.
Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 threats.
The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.
Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.
In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”
Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”
This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.
In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.
The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.
Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.
Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.
“The government is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.
Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.
“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”
Leonard 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 hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”
Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.
She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.
“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.
“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”
Regarding the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently
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