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The US President does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

The judge had ordered restraining orders blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office recently, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

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

Increasing Threat Statistics

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is observing at these successes and setbacks. 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 claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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