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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

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 attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’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