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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid online criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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