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The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide 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 January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in several countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline 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 enact any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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