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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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