Maga Supporters Back Bukele's Call for Trump to Crack Down on American Judges

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts say that Bukele's recent remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, non-violent protests outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's attorney general and five judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by repeating their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

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

She highlighted a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

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