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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion 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 end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored 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 Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

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

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer 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 understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

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