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The US President rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement recently 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 federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

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

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say 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 “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

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

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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