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The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation'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 social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly 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 repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, 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 residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently