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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

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 Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

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 such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, 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 presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently