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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, 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 so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, 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 rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary 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 say that the threats 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 executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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