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Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

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

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently