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

The US President does not usually take advice, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to follow his example in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an X post by one-time supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by Bukele.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and several justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

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

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

Citing examples such as the advisor's persistent claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

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

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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