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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently