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

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was one more 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 judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, 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 repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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