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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online criticism on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries 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 assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On 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