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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults 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 opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied 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 successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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