Maga Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Plea for Trump to Target American Judiciary

The US President does not usually take counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to flatter and compliment the US president.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

The president's online call last week was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks 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 language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

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

Global Strongman Playbook

That march towards authoritarianism has been common in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, 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