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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations 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 attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

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

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently