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The US President rarely accepts counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

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

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 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 fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief 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 judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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