Maga Supporters Back Bukele's Call for Trump to Target American Judges

The US President does not usually take advice, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using comparable strong-arm methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's ruling to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into Portland, which the president has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of risks and intimidation in the months since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, right after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to reframe the discussion by repeating 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 rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs 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 escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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