Maga Figures Endorse Bukele's Call for Trump to Crack Down on American Judges

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's strongman president Nayib Bukele has followed a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to take action against the US judiciary also received backing from Trump allies, including an social media message by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past boosted Bukele's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Experts say that the leader's latest remarks occur of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a phase where the president's team is employing similar authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's social media call recently was just the latest in a long series of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a court's order to halt removal operations transporting accused illegal immigrants to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's impeachment call was also made amid online attacks on Oregon justice Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have highlighted a increased atmosphere of threats and coercion in the period since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

Based on data collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to top the previous year's record of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, harassment, surveillance, or violence directed against judges on the state and municipal levels in 2025.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with rising violent posts on online platforms.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of Trump’s administration.”

Beirich, the co-founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's advance towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in multiple nations, including by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, right after commencing a second term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and five justices on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by Bukele.

The action echoed the Hungarian leader's remodeling of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

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

Meghan Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in free nations, said the Trump administration had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

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

Citing examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the judiciary by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They continue to redefine the debate by repeating their argument that the executive has greater authority than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their ability to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the administration’s aims, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently