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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

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 March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity 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, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, 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