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The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, 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 fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration 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 instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “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 discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

“Everyone understands 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 Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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