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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new 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 supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” 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 the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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