Maga Figures Back El Salvador Leader's Call for Trump to Target American Judiciary

The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Maga figures, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Experts say that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid social media attacks on the state's justice Judge Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has characterized as “war-ravaged” 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 blocked presidential directives or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Prior to returning to power recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already surpassed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, 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 debate by emphasizing their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And these are specialized police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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