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The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of 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 provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. 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

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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