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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

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 allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology 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 warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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