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Donald Trump is not typically known for counsel, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian methods used by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

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

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a product of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees hand picked by the leader.

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

Weakening Court Autonomy

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

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” 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 pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently