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

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening 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 democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently