Maga Supporters Endorse El Salvador Leader's Plea for Trump to Crack Down on US Judges

Donald Trump is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement recently was just the latest in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is on track to exceed 2023's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's research project shows that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and demands for ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards authoritarianism.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and several justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted 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 gunman targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

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