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The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

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

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

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

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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