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The US President is not typically known for guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

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

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On 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