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The US President is not typically known for counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently