Maga Figures Back Bukele's Call for US President to Crack Down on American Judiciary

The US President rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who often attempt to praise and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “dishonest judges.”

The call for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Experts note that the leader's latest intervention come at a time of unmatched threats to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

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

Immergut had ordered injunctions preventing Trump from deploying the national guard, first in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have pointed to a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he re-entered the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to 395 federal judges, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already surpassed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Information by the university's research project indicates that there have been at least 59 instances of threats, targeting, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Threat Sources

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and reckless 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 physical intimidation against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’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 new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

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

Weakening Court Autonomy

Experts explain that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by authoritarians overseas.

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

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by stating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the debate by emphasizing their argument that the president 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 legitimacy of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for the political system.”

Intimidation Tactics

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries 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 aiming at the judge.

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

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

Government Goals

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