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

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor'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 separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” 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 “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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