Maga Supporters Back Bukele's Plea for US President to Crack Down on US Judiciary

Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unmatched threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's social media call recently was one more in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in the West Coast state. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, 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 attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Before returning to power this year, Trump urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the federal agency, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is likely to top the previous year's high of over six hundred reported incidents.

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

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with rising aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “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 first full month of the president's term.”

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

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken judicial independence in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly criticize the judiciary by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the president 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 eroding 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.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as the Hungarian and the Russian, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She highlighted a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the presidential protection and the federal police. And those are both dedicated police units that are placed institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently