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The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele'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, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats 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 warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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