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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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