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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats 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 “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned 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 laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly 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 more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

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

Administration Aims

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