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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

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

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration'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 inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising 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 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level 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 spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently