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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

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 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “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 the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader'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 the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science 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 rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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