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Donald Trump is not typically known for advice, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and compliment the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top 2023's record of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels 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 detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment 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 certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy 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.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently