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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media statement recently 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 court's order to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his country's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid online criticism on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

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

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Playbook

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

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

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

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

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, she noted: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy 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 current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All understands 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 spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

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