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The US President is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary 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 demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

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

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen 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 courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust 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, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone 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 these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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