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The US President rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard 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 current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, 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