Maga Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Target American Judges

The US President does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

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

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media statement recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made amid social media criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to send troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in multiple nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in Israel and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned 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 enact any laws that would weaken the judiciary,” she said.

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

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

“All knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges 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 attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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