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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently