President Donald Trump dispensed a 250th Fourth of July gift Friday to more than a half dozen Americans by pardoning them from criminal sentences obtained by the Biden administration for “simply fixing” their cars.
Writing on Truth Social, the president announced:
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. I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Those Trump pardoned had been charged and sentenced for circumventing emissions control regulations under the Clean Air Act that are no longer in effect, a White House official told Fox News Digital.
“It came to my attention because I noticed they were arresting people for fixing their car,” Trump said during an Oval Office news conference. “We rule by common sense.”
The pardons align with Trump’s broader effort to defend the “right to repair,” the outlet reported.
Earlier in the week, the president signed a memo, “Lowering the Cost of Living by Promoting the Freedom to Fix,” designed to make it easier for Americans and independent repair shops to repair vehicles and to provide more access to aftermarket parts.
“Trump’s Justice Department had ordered federal prosecutors earlier this year to drop criminal investigations and abandon pending cases related to ‘defeat devices’ — software used to bypass emissions controls,” according to CNN.
Those receiving pardons, according to Fox Digital, included Joshua Davis, Matt Geouge, Jonathan Achtemeier, Tim Clancy, Ryan and Wade Lalone, Barry Pierce, Aaron Rudolf, and Mackenzie Spurlock.
CNN reported:
Trump pardoned Joshua Davis, whom the official said was on probation. In 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement collectively with Davis and several Illinois businesses requiring them “to stop manufacturing, selling, offering to sell, and installing devices that bypass, defeat, or render inoperative EPA-approved emission controls and harm air quality, commonly referred to as Aftermarket Defeat Devices.” The defendants were ordered to pay $600,000.
CNN and other news outlets profiled several of the others convicted of violating the Clean Air Act, attributing the details of their offenses to news releases by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Many of them avoided prison sentences and received probation.
Matt Geouge was pardoned after being sentenced in North Carolina “for conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act” by selling “defeat devices.”
Jonathan Achtemeier, who was sentenced in the state of Washington after pleading guilty to tampering “with the monitoring devices on hundreds of vehicles nationwide so those trucks would not detect that their owners removed pollution control hardware systems.”
Tim Clancy was sentenced in Oregon for crimes also related to tampering with emissions monitoring devices.
Ryan and Wade Lalone were sentenced in western Michigan as part of a case targeting “a scheme to disable emissions controls on semi-trucks.“
“At the time, Biden administration officials defended the criminal prosecutions as essential for public health,” Fox Digital reported.
The New York Times portrayed the pardons as “the latest move by the Trump administration to undermine laws intended to fight climate change and curb air pollutants that harm human health.”
However, the newspaper also reported on opposition to the act, writing, “Republicans and their allies in the business community have cast enforcement of the Clean Air Act as a hindrance to commerce and an undue burden to those who rely on diesel engines.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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