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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call last week was just the latest 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 court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats 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 threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

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

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by Bukele.

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

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The administration is observing at these successes 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 assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive 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 authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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