President Donald Trump stopped his midterm campaign rally in Wasilla, Alaska, on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, called two diesel shop owners onstage and handed them presidential pardons.
The pardons went to Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming, two owners of an Anchorage shop who pleaded guilty in 2022 in a Clean Air Act case. Trump brought them up in front of the crowd at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center.
Natalie Harp Carried the Documents
White House aide Natalie Harp carried the clemency documents to Trump. He signed them in front of the audience, passed the papers to the two men and lifted one toward the crowd.
Trump said onstage that the pardons were unconditional and covered all three co-owners of the shop. He said he acted after reading about the case and looking into it.
The third co-owner, Michael Wayne Hanzuk, had already received his pardon in September 2026. Trump also said he was taking care of a third person.
Trump said at the rally: “When you give somebody a pardon, they say that means — and I don’t know how this works and why it’s an expression, but it’s well-used — that means you’re as clean as a newborn baby’s ass. I never understood that. Why is that so clean?”
Trump said the men were wrongly charged. He accused the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden of going after the way Alaskans live.
Trump said onstage: “Think of it: They want to put them in jail for 10 years because they fixed an engine. How sick?”
Both men made brief remarks to the rally. Fleming, speaking to the rally, said, “This means the world to me.”
Fleming said the charges against the three “really did destroy us.” He added, “We’re not criminals. We’re not trying to hurt anybody.”
Prosecutors Cited at Least 37 Vehicles
Czubak, Fleming and Hanzuk pleaded guilty in 2022 to one count of conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act. Their shop, Arm Rippin Toys, Inc., specializes in diesel vehicles.
Emission control systems came out of customers’ trucks for fees that ran from $1,140 to $5,445, Federal prosecutors said. Prosecutors said the work modified physical components and blocked the vehicles’ diagnostic systems from detecting a problem, and the trucks then released more pollution.
The co-owners and employees falsified and tampered with emissions monitoring devices on at least 37 vehicles between July 2019 and September 2020, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in 2022. For that work, the business took in about $100,000.
The Justice Department said each removal raised a vehicle’s particulate matter about 40 times, its nitrogen oxides about 310 times, its carbon monoxide about 120 times and its non-methane hydrocarbons about 1,100 times.
Defeat equipment produces an enormous jump in air pollution from even a single vehicle, Scot Adair said in a 2022 statement. He was then the special agent in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division in Alaska. In the same statement, Adair said the agency and its law enforcement partners would keep holding accountable people who put health and the environment at risk for profit.
Those figures went unmentioned by Trump at the rally.
The Justice Department said Czubak and Hanzuk each received five years of probation, a $66,000 fine and 180 hours of community service. Fleming received a $66,000 fine and no prison time.
A Second Dan Sullivan on the Ballot
The rally was staged in part to help Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, hold off Democratic challenger Mary Peltola. It was also meant to lift Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, before the November midterms.
Trump pressed Alaskans on repeal of the state’s ranked-choice voting system. He told the crowd it was a way for Democrats to cheat.
Trump warned the crowd that another candidate named Dan Sullivan, a retired teacher, is on the ballot. He claimed Democrats put that candidate forward to confuse voters.
The retired teacher took 2.5 percent in the August Senate primary. That was enough to reach the general election. Trump told the crowd that share could decide the race.
A July Pardon for Mac Spurlock
Trump referred at the rally to pardons in a similar case. He pardoned Mac Spurlock, another Alaska diesel mechanic, in July 2026. Prosecutors had charged Spurlock with violating the Clean Air Act by removing pollution control systems.
Spurlock and his supporters have argued that the engine modifications were needed to keep emissions systems from failing in Alaska’s frigid weather.
Sullivan praised that pardon in July 2026. Overzealous federal prosecutors were to blame, he said, and he argued that EPA rules should be adjusted for cold-weather states.
In January 2026, the Justice Department announced that it would bring no more criminal Clean Air Act charges based on allegations of tampering with onboard diagnostic devices.
The Trump administration has loosened fuel economy standards. An EPA policy that gave automakers credits for start-stop emissions systems was also scrapped.
Political allies have repeatedly received Trump’s clemency, as have people who, like him, say they were prosecuted unfairly.