Maga Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Call for Trump to Crack Down on US Judges

The US President is not typically known for advice, particularly from international figures who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, such as an X post by former close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also made during online criticism on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, Trump directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

Based on information collected by the federal agency, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in calls for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite legal bans, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is looking around 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 instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity 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, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

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

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

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the government's aims, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently