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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon 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 demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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