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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase 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 the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently