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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

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

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently