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The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “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 previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The government 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.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation 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 the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government'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