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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has more power 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 ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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