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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 American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked 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 in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine 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 studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is observing at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

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

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading 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