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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

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

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric 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 supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% 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 Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

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

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently