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Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

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

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

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 aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after commencing a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

“The administration is looking around 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 examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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