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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued during online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased climate of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently