Maga Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Call for Trump to Target US Judges

The US President is not typically known for advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during social media attacks on the state's justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur 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. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from January to February of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation 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 court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently