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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call 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 the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state 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 comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen 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 examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening 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 democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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