Trump Supporters Back El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Crack Down on American Judiciary

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

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by calling on the White House to follow his example in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by former supporter Elon Musk, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's calls to oust US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention occur of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online call recently was one more in a string of taunts and allegations he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt deportation flights sending accused illegal immigrants to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also made during online criticism on the state's justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, former AG Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had ordered restraining orders preventing Trump from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been pushing to dispatch troops into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of attacking judges who have blocked presidential directives or otherwise impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office recently, the president directed his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased climate of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Risk Data

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, giving rise to 805 inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to exceed 2023's record of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the national level. Data from the university's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine cases of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Experts state that the intimidation are a result of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and reckless statements from Trump administration members and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the courts is another move in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards authoritarianism has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In several years ago, right after starting a second term in the face of legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action mirrored Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in free nations, said the White House had taken cues from the examples set by strongmen abroad.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent assertions of nearly limitless executive power, 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 persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at Princeton University, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And these are dedicated police units that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently