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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

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

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats 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.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently