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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement 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 “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim 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 ability 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, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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