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

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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