Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.
However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”
The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.
Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.
The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.
The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.
The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's homeland security facility.
The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.
Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.
According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, 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 Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.
Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.
In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”
Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”
This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by Bukele.
In several years ago, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.
The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.
Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.
Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.
“The government is looking around at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.
Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.
“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating 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 public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”
Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.
She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.
“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.
“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”
On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently
Lena Hoffmann is a seasoned journalist with a passion for uncovering stories that matter, specializing in German current affairs and digital media trends.
