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

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

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention 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 employing similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The government 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 judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening 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 the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries 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 targeting Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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