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

The US President is not typically known for guidance, especially from international figures who often seek to flatter and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for Trump to move against the American court system also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts note that Bukele's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights transporting suspected undocumented individuals to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Federal Judge

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also made amid social media criticism on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and the president personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on small, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Before resuming office recently, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or violence directed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Experts state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising aggressive posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have certainly driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

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

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting pandemic policies, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and attempts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of broad executive power, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of social science and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, 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.

“All knows what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently