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The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from international figures who frequently seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

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

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

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently