Trump Pardoned 20 People and Six Companies for Disabling Diesel Pollution Controls

Twenty People and Six Companies

On July 3, 2026, President Donald Trump announced pardons for "six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison," for what he called "fixing their car." He added: "I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!"¹

The pardons he signed, for 20 people and six companies on July 3 and September 3, went to commercial businesses and their operators that had deliberately defeated diesel pollution controls.²³ One company had admitted selling about 22,000 devices that let trucks run with their pollution controls removed, for roughly $14 million.³ One man's pardon also covered tax evasion; another's, obstruction of an EPA investigation.² In a third case, an EPA investigator had projected more than 144 tons of nitrogen oxides from the altered trucks in Alaska's Mat-Su Valley.⁴

These pardons are Trump's own act: he signed warrants granting full and unconditional pardons and directing the Pardon Attorney to carry them out.⁵⁶ Mackenzie Spurlock, a diesel-business owner pardoned on July 3, had been sentenced to five years' probation and a $32,000 fine, not prison.²

The Strongest Case for Mercy

The strongest defense combines a practical danger with a legal objection. Senator Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, argued that diesel exhaust-fluid systems could leave trucks inoperable in extreme cold and that Spurlock was keeping Alaska businesses' vehicles running.⁷ Sullivan cited a trucker whose vehicle shut down in a blizzard on Alaska's Dalton Highway.⁷ The mechanical problem is real enough to appear in one pardoned company's plea agreement: some unresolved emissions-system faults limit a truck to five miles per hour.³

On the law, CBS News reported that the Justice Department argued such tampering was a civil matter, not a crime, because the Clean Air Act did not require emissions software to be maintained.⁸ CBS also reported that career EPA lawyers disputed that interpretation.⁸ On January 21, 2026, DOJ announced it would no longer pursue criminal charges based on onboard-diagnostic tampering, while keeping civil enforcement when appropriate.⁹ The Constitution gives the president authority to pardon federal offenses, except in cases of impeachment.¹⁰

This defense won executive action. Sullivan requested Spurlock's pardon on March 12 and celebrated it on July 3, saying the conviction had restricted Spurlock's travel, firearm possession and reenlistment after six years in the Alaska Air National Guard.⁷ Trump delivered the clemency he promised: full and unconditional pardons for Spurlock and the other named recipients.²⁵⁶

Mercy for a mechanic facing dangerous failures is a serious argument. It does not explain pardoning a seller's tax evasion or another operator's false response to investigators, both offenses included in these grants.²¹¹¹²

Twenty-Two Thousand Devices, Fourteen Million Dollars

GDP Tuning's plea agreement records the scale of what Trump forgave: from approximately January 2018 through August 2019, the company and its owner, Barry Pierce, sold about 22,000 tuners and tuning devices with customized deletion software for approximately $14 million.³ GDP admitted that its products let customers remove emissions equipment without the onboard diagnostics detecting the removal or triggering the reduced-speed response, and that the sellers knew the trucks were used on public roads.³

The associated shop, Custom Auto of Rexburg, separately admitted removing emissions equipment and changing the diagnostics so they would not detect it.¹³

Trump pardoned Pierce, GDP Tuning and Custom Auto together.⁵ Their plea agreement recommended a single shared $1 million fine, and DOJ's grant register records a $1 million fine for each defendant, alongside four months in prison for Pierce and five years' probation for each company.³² Trump also pardoned three Michigan companies whose individual criminal fines totaled $1.75 million.²

Tax Evasion and a False Answer to EPA

The pardons also reached tax evasion and obstruction.² EPA issued Matthew Geouge a violation notice in August 2015 for selling illegal tuners, according to DOJ's Environmental Crimes Section.¹¹ By its account he kept selling, grossing more than $10 million in sales through 2019, and concealed assets and taxable income from EPA and the IRS; he pleaded guilty to the pollution conspiracy and to tax evasion.¹¹ His June 2022 sentence included a year and a day in prison and $1,205,532 in restitution, and Trump's July pardon covered both offenses.²

The business passed to buyers who knew EPA was investigating: Joshua Davis bought Spartan Diesel Technologies in 2016, and Spade Bailly later bought its successor's inventory and kept selling.¹¹ Trump pardoned Davis in July and Bailly in September.²

In Maine, Isaac Merrill Allen gave EPA a false response that understated how many vehicle tunes his business had performed, according to the U.S. attorney's account of his guilty plea.¹² A federal court sentenced him in May 2025 to three years' probation and a $40,000 fine, and his probation required every vehicle he owned, directly or through any associated company, to have the required emissions controls and onboard diagnostics functioning within their original parameters.¹² Trump's September grant covered both the pollution conspiracy and the obstruction of an agency proceeding.²⁶

The Cost Fell on People Breathing the Exhaust

One case shows where the cost fell. Daniel Aaron Chase, co-owner of DC 907 Diesels in Wasilla, directed employees to remove emissions controls and alter diagnostics so customers' trucks could run without them, according to the U.S. attorney in Alaska.⁴ The shop altered at least 144 trucks, and Chase made more than $349,000 from the work over five years.⁴

In November 2023, EPA investigator Scot Adair projected that Chase's actions would put more than 144 tons of nitrogen oxides and more than a ton of particulate matter into the air of Alaska's Mat-Su Valley, an area he said already struggled with air quality.⁴ EPA says nitrogen oxides can cause asthma, difficult or painful breathing and chronic bronchitis, especially in children and elderly people.¹⁴ Trump pardoned Chase on September 3, 2026.²

What the Pardons Canceled and What They Left

As of October 10, 2026, DOJ lists these grants as pardons, and the warrants Trump signed grant full and unconditional relief.²⁵⁶ DOJ explains that a pardon removes remaining unpaid or unserved punishment and conviction-based civil disabilities; it does not signify innocence, erase the conviction or end separate noncriminal civil proceedings.¹⁵

Aaron Rudolf pleaded guilty to conspiring to tamper with monitoring devices on approximately 300 diesel trucks and received three years' probation and a $600,000 criminal fine.¹⁶ Trump's July warrant pardoned him alone; his company's criminal case and the civil case against both were outside it.¹⁷¹⁶¹⁵ The company's separate sentence included a $2.4 million criminal fine and three years' probation.¹⁶ EPA's settlement page, updated September 4, 2026, continued to describe the civil terms: a $7 million penalty, destruction of remaining defeat devices and a prohibition on further sales or technical support.¹⁴ That settlement reaches well beyond the pardoned criminal case's approximately 300 trucks: it addressed more than 250,000 defeat devices sold or installed between 2014 and 2019, and EPA estimated that the devices Rudolf and his company sold would add emissions equivalent to more than 11 million vehicles on U.S. roads.¹⁴¹⁶

Trump told the public he was freeing people persecuted for fixing their cars.¹ What he signed removed the remaining criminal consequences of commercial pollution schemes, tax evasion and obstruction included.²³ The businesses earned the sales; communities faced the exhaust.³⁴ That use of public power to excuse commercial harm is the abuse for which he should answer in an impeachment inquiry.

Related reading: Trump's separate commutation ending George Santos's further restitution is covered in [Clemency for the Connected](../paidpardons/paidpardons_casefile_strong.md).¹⁸