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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims 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 court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently