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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

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 administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information 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 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is observing 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 examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, 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 so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently