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The US President does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

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

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

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

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration 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 the advisor's persistent claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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