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The US President rarely accepts advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies 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 dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges 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 the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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