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The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive 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 taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts 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.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, 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. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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