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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele'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 comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding 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 democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

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

She highlighted a series of so-called “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 murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently