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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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