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The US President rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader'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 similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, 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 indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

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

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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