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

The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to flatter and compliment the US president.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has followed a distinct approach by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Experts note that Bukele's latest remarks occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian methods used by leaders in nations such as Türkiye, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to halt removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's impeachment call was also issued amid social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump personally in a latest media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders blocking the administration from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

History of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

The threats are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

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

International Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a second term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by rejecting pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements hand picked by the leader.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Court Autonomy

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.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is observing 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 instances such as Miller’s persistent assertions of broad presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and global studies at Princeton University, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” 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 “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in 2020 by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices 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 leading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

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