Trump Supporters Endorse El Salvador Leader's Plea for US President to Target US Judges

Donald Trump does not usually take counsel, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and admire the American leader.

However, El Salvador's strongman president Bukele has followed a different approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the leader's recent remarks occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and specific justices in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods used by rulers in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's social media statement last week was just the latest in a string of provocations and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a March claim that the US was “facing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop removal operations transporting accused undocumented individuals to his country's harsh correctional facilities.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Stephen Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and the president himself in a latest press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking Trump from mobilizing the national guard, first in Oregon then in California. Trump has been pushing to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Judges

Miller, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways hindered the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased atmosphere of threats and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. 2025 has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is on track to exceed the previous year's high of 630 threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in the current year.

Expert Insights on Threat Sources

Specialists say that the threats are a result of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “malicious and reckless statements from White House allies and supporters align with escalating violent posts on online platforms.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent rise in demands for impeachment and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the courts is one more step in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in multiple countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite legal bans, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as efforts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the executive to dismiss judges the administration disapproves of.

Leonard, an associate professor at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the examples set by authoritarians abroad.

“The administration is observing at these successes and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Citing examples such as Miller’s persistent claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the judiciary by repeating 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 president has more power than this judicial branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is public trust in the authority of their capacity to make those decisions. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for court oversight and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of social science and global studies at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in several years ago by a gunman targeting Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” Scheppele said.

“Federal judges are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are dedicated law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

Regarding the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently