Maga Supporters Back Bukele's Plea for US President to Target American Judges

Donald Trump does not usually take advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the Trump administration to follow his example 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, such as an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar authoritarian methods employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement last week was one more in a long series of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending accused illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued amid online attacks on the state's federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch troops into Portland, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, non-violent protests outside the city's homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

Based on information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's high of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, harassment, stalking, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months of this year, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, made way for replacements hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and Poland.

Undermining Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has researched authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the models set by strongmen overseas.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in reframe the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

The professor said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both specialized police units that sit structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the government's objectives, the expert said that “removing a US justice is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently