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

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

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The government is observing at these successes 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 Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, 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 residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently