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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university'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.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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