Trump Supporters Back Bukele's Plea for US President to Target American Judiciary

The US President does not usually take guidance, especially from foreign leaders who often attempt to flatter and admire the US president.

But, El Salvador's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's recent intervention occur of unprecedented dangers to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in countries such as Türkiye, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and his mockery of a federal judge's order to stop deportation flights sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into Portland, which the president has characterized as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened atmosphere of risks and coercion in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to data gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to 395 federal judges, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed 2023's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Threat Sources

Experts say that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February of this year, the first full month 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 ouster. Targeting the courts is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been common in the past decade in multiple countries, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the nation's attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at similar moves in Israel and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges Trump disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in democracies, said the White House had learned from the models set by authoritarians abroad.

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

Pointing to instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the discussion by emphasizing their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

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

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of the Hungarian and the Russian, and has warned about rising threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the judge’s home in several years ago by a assailant aiming at Salas.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on justices.”

Government Goals

On the administration’s objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s very difficult to do. {Right now|Currently