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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, 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. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government'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