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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to flatter and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration 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 social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain 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 Trump opposes.

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

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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