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The US President rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an X post by former supporter Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics used by rulers in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, 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 align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove 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 replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks 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.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is observing at these achievements and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

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

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently