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Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed 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 language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 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 fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves 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 seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal 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 rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. 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 aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently