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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

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 inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language 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 escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

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

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss 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 new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly 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 debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial 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. 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 judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently