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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different strategy by calling on the White House 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 backing from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent remarks come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

“The government is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

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

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

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently