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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say 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 dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples 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 laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading 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