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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove 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 selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is observing 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 persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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