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The US President is not typically known for counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

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

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

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

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently