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

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely 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 research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, 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 redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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