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The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump 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. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

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

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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