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The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary 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 demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Analysis 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 comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. 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, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

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 dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s objectives, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently