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Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed 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 American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has studied 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 undermine the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently