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

Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, particularly from foreign leaders who often attempt to praise and compliment the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has adopted a different strategy by urging the White House to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the US judiciary also garnered backing from Trump allies, such as an social media message by one-time close Trump ally the billionaire, who has previously amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that the leader's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the US, and during a phase where the president's team is using similar authoritarian tactics employed by leaders in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's online call last week was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has made against the US's legal system, including a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights sending suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's brutal correctional facilities.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued during online attacks on the state's federal judge Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump himself in a latest media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions blocking the administration from mobilizing the national guard, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to send troops into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, non-violent protests outside the urban federal building.

Record of Targeting Judges

Miller, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of attacking judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the government's political agenda. Prior to returning to power recently, the president directed his followers against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then deluged with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a heightened 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 the current year through the third quarter, there were over five hundred threats to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and last year, and is likely to exceed the previous year's high of over six hundred threats.

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

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

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

In spring, the watchdog group published a detailed report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and allies align with escalating aggressive 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 initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely driven digital abuse at judges and calls for ouster. Targeting the judiciary is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards authoritarianism has been common in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after commencing a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and several judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements selected by the leader.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges recently; and attempts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Experts say that the intimidation and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as attempts to undermine court autonomy in a system that offers no easy way for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has researched democratic decline in free nations, said the White House had learned 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 pass any legislation that would undermine the courts,” she said.

Pointing to examples such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly attack the judiciary by repeating repeatedly that it is not a co-equal branch in the government structure.

“They persist in reframe the debate by repeating their argument that the president has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the sitting government, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the such as Orbán and Putin, and has warned about escalating dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of so-called “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Justice Salas, who was killed at the residence in several years ago by a gunman aiming at Salas.

“Everyone knows what it means. ‘We know where you live. We’re coming for you,’” Scheppele said.

“US justices are protected by the Secret Service and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And the former AG has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “removing a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently