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The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

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

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. 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 social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently