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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently