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The US President is not typically known for counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, 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 string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’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