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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor 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 warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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