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The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

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

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online call last week was one more in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights transporting accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise hindered the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly driven digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts 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 Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues 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 laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

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