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

Donald Trump does not usually take guidance, particularly from international figures who often seek to flatter and compliment the American leader.

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

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

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that the leader's recent intervention come at a time of unmatched dangers to judicial independence and specific justices in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable authoritarian methods employed by rulers in countries such as Türkiye, Hungary, India, and his native El Salvador to undermine democratic accountability.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to halt removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

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

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking Trump from deploying the national guard, initially in Oregon then in the West Coast state. The president has been pushing to send troops into the city, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

History of Attacking Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the administration's policy goals. Prior to resuming office this year, the president urged his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, law enforcement agencies, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and coercion in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Risk Data

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred federal judges, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed the first recorded year, and 2024, and is on track to exceed the previous year's record of over six hundred reported incidents.

The dangers are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project shows that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, targeting, surveillance, or violence committed 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 watchdog group published a detailed report claiming that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and allies coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a fifty-four percent increase in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and calls for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards authoritarianism.”

Global Strongman Tactics

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

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, the president's parliamentary loyalists voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the constitutional court. The justices, who had angered him by rejecting coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees hand picked by the leader.

The move mirrored Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of Hungary’s court system several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s court cleanups recently; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove 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 strongmen 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 weaken the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless executive power, she added: “They openly criticize 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 repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Justices' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those decisions. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges think twice about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Intimidation Tactics

Scheppele, academic of sociology and global studies at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has spoken out about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the customer listed as a name, the child of Justice Salas, who was killed at the judge’s home in 2020 by a gunman targeting Salas.

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

“US justices are guarded by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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