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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration 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 limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a 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 checks and balances work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

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

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently