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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats 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. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently