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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter 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 Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own 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 claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say 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 comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

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

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats 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 recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. 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 almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently