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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative 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.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. 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 broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently