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The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several 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 dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

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

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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