President Donald Trump signed pardons for eleven people on Friday, including nine individuals convicted of violating the Clean Air Act by disabling or selling devices that bypass vehicle emissions controls, prosecutions he characterized as persecution by the Biden administration against Americans who were simply "fixing their car."
Trump announced the clemency action on Truth Social, framing the cases as exhibits of federal overreach during the prior administration. Just the News reported that CBS News had earlier indicated Trump was expected to pardon people convicted of emissions and clean air-related violations.
The pardons mark the latest move in a broader administration effort to dismantle Biden-era environmental enforcement. They follow a January order from the Department of Justice directing federal prosecutors to drop all remaining criminal cases involving aftermarket "defeat devices", equipment used to disable pollution-control systems on diesel engines. And they arrive days after Trump signed a June 29 executive order directing the EPA to deprioritize civil enforcement of emission-control tampering.
The nine emissions-related pardons covered individuals convicted under the Clean Air Act for using, installing, or selling defeat devices that circumvent vehicle emissions monitoring systems. AP News reported that Trump also signed a memo earlier in the week directing the EPA that Americans can modify their vehicles as they see fit, superseding the California Air Resources Board's authority on emissions-related parts.
Two additional pardons were granted for unrelated fraud convictions, bringing the total to eleven.
Trump had previously pardoned an unnamed Wyoming mechanic who served seven months in federal prison for disabling air pollution-control equipment on diesel engines. That earlier clemency set the template for Friday's broader action.
Trump posted on Truth Social:
"It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for 'fixing their car.' While I know this sounds ridiculous, it is nevertheless a fact, and part of the Weaponization and Stupidity that our Country had to endure during four long years of Sleepy Joe Biden."
The reference to "six people" in Trump's post appears to describe one subset of the nine emissions-related pardons. Some recipients were already incarcerated; others were facing prison sentences at the time of the pardon.
Under the Biden administration, the DOJ pursued criminal prosecutions against individuals and small businesses that modified diesel engines by removing or disabling emissions equipment. The cases relied on Clean Air Act provisions that prohibit tampering with pollution-control devices.
One measure of the enforcement's severity: Breitbart reported that a prior DOJ press release stated one convicted defendant's trucks were found to emit 30 to 1,200 times the pollutants of a legally configured truck. That statistic illustrates the gap between the government's framing, serious environmental violations, and Trump's framing, which casts the prosecuted individuals as ordinary Americans modifying their own property.
Attorney Stewart Cables, who represented at least one of the pardon recipients, told Newsmax:
"We think this type of case is an example of government overreach. That's why we are trying to get these pardons."
Lobbyist Jeff Daugherty told CBS News that Trump "is the only president to face such ferocious weaponization himself," connecting the emissions pardons to the broader theme of prosecutorial overreach that has defined much of Trump's political identity.
The pardons fit squarely within a second-term strategy of using executive power to reverse what the administration views as weaponized federal enforcement. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche had already ordered federal prosecutors to drop remaining criminal cases involving aftermarket defeat devices, effectively ending the DOJ's enforcement pipeline before the pardons even arrived.
Trump's June 29 executive order went further, instructing the EPA to deprioritize civil enforcement of emission-control tampering, closing not just the criminal door but the regulatory one as well. The sequence is deliberate: first stop new prosecutions, then pardon those already convicted, then strip the agency of its enforcement priority.
This approach mirrors the administration's posture in other areas. The DOJ recently dropped a major IRS lawsuit and created a fund for Americans targeted under Biden, signaling that the current White House views many prior enforcement actions as illegitimate exercises of federal power.
The Washington Examiner noted that Trump has granted clemency to thousands of people during his second term, including more than 1,500 January 6 defendants. The emissions pardons represent a smaller but symbolically potent category, working-class Americans and small-business operators caught in the gears of environmental regulation.
Trump's expansive use of the pardon power has drawn attention throughout his second term. The president has weighed preemptive pardons for aides amid Democratic plans to investigate his administration, demonstrating a willingness to use clemency as both a corrective tool and a shield.
The emissions pardons carry a different political valence. These are not political allies or high-profile defendants. They are mechanics, shop owners, and diesel operators who ran afoul of federal environmental law, people whose cases rarely make national news but whose convictions carry real prison time.
Whether you call it "fixing their car" or "disabling pollution-control equipment on diesel engines" depends on where you stand. But the underlying question is simpler: Should the federal government send Americans to prison for modifying their own trucks?
The Biden DOJ said yes. Trump says no, and he has the pardon pen to prove it.
The broader legal landscape continues to shift as the administration reasserts limits on federal regulatory power. The Supreme Court's own recent battles over constitutional frameworks, from gun-rights decisions to landmark unanimous rulings, reflect the same tension between federal authority and individual liberty that animates the emissions cases.
The names, specific charges, and sentences of all nine emissions-related pardon recipients have not been fully disclosed. The specific federal statutes under which each was convicted, and the enforcement offices that brought the cases, remain unclear from available reporting. Whether additional clemency requests in emissions cases are pending is also unknown.
What is clear is the direction. The Trump administration has shut down criminal prosecutions, issued pardons for those already convicted, and ordered the EPA to stand down on civil enforcement. For the diesel mechanics and shop owners caught up in Biden-era Clean Air Act cases, the message is unambiguous: the federal government is done treating you like criminals.
When a government sends working Americans to prison for what they do to their own trucks, and a president has to use the pardon power to get them out, something went badly wrong long before the pardons were signed.