Maga Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Crack Down on American Judges

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

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

The president'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 March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and allies align with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months of this year, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a second term in the face of legal bans, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements selected by the leader.

The action mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“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 weaken the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian 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 unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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