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

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result 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 reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The administration is looking around at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers 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 weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned 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 recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently