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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high 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, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

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

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently