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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, 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 Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase 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: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several 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 country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries 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 understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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