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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

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 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian 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 starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. 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 are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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