Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming ran a diesel repair shop in Anchorage called Arm Rippin Toys. They kept Alaskans' trucks running, and Joe Biden's Justice Department made them federal felons for it.
On Tuesday night in Wasilla, President Trump called them up onstage and pardoned them in front of thousands of cheering Alaskans.
"So I'm going to sign this now," Trump said, pen in hand, "something that Joe Biden would be unable to do because he was unable to sign his signature." As he signed, he added: "I love doing this stuff."
Federal prosecutors had charged Czubak, Fleming, and their third co-owner, Michael Hanzuk II, with removing emissions-control equipment and reprogramming the computers on at least 37 diesel vehicles between July 2019 and September 2020. The shop took in about $100,000 for the work over those 14 months.
In 2022, each man pleaded guilty to a felony Clean Air Act count. Czubak and Hanzuk were each sentenced to five years of probation, 180 hours of community service, and a $66,000 fine.
The equipment in question doesn't hold up well in an Alaska winter. Diesel exhaust fluid, which modern emissions systems need, freezes at about 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Alaskans have spent years complaining that the systems fail in the cold and leave drivers stranded.
The federal government's answer to those complaints was to prosecute the mechanics who kept the trucks running.
One of the mechanics took the microphone and told the crowd what the case had cost them. "We're not criminals," he said. "We want to help people." Then he said the rest: "It really did destroy us. It destroyed friendships. It destroyed families."
Trump has been righting these wrongs for a while. In November 2025, he pardoned Troy Lake, a Cheyenne, Wyoming diesel mechanic who had spent seven months in federal prison for working on struggling engines. In July 2026, he pardoned Mackenzie "Mac" Spurlock, a Wasilla shop owner and Air National Guard veteran who got five years of probation and a $32,000 fine for the same kind of work.
The government came after Spurlock with force. According to Sen. Dan Sullivan, "about 30 armed EPA agents conducted a military-style tactical raid" of his shop, Matanuska Diesel.
Trump was in Wasilla to support Sullivan's reelection, and Sullivan has spent years on this fight. "For years, Obama-era diesel regulations that cause trucks to stop working in extreme cold have put Alaskans in danger," he said last month. "The EPA even criminalized local mechanics who were simply trying to keep drivers safe."
His Cold Weather Diesel Reliability Act, written with Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, would exempt cold-climate vehicles from diesel exhaust fluid requirements. It has passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Trump's Justice Department has already shut down the criminal side of these cases. On January 21, 2026, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche ordered federal prosecutors to stop bringing criminal charges over diesel emissions tampering and to drop the cases already pending.
So the prosecutions Biden's DOJ treated as felony cases are now a policy the Justice Department has abandoned, and the men it convicted are getting pardons onstage.
Trump also brought good news for the rest of the state. He announced that an 800-mile natural gas pipeline had secured every federal permit it needs. "Every single permit that you need has been granted," he told the crowd.
That was Tuesday night in Wasilla: two pardons for working men, and the permits for an 800-mile pipeline.