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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was one more 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 “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred 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 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around 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.

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless 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 continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive 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 authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

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

Administration Aims

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