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The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the US president.

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 so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

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

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power 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 capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy 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, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, 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