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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment 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 co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, 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 country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched 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 achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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