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The US President rarely accepts counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

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

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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