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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave 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 gunman targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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