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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms 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 certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone 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 Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently