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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal 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 presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say 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 “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument 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 eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently