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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration 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 authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating 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 other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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