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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for 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 efforts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the 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 achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at 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 presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently