Maga Supporters Endorse El Salvador Leader's Plea for Trump to Crack Down on American Judiciary

The US President rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the Trump administration to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the American court system also garnered backing from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to exceed the previous year's record of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% increase in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

International Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the Trump administration 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 laws that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently