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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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