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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader'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 employing similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

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.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, 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 exceed 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists 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 alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

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 overseas.

“The government is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

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

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, 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 residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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