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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct 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 garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

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

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned 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 pass any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands 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 dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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