Biden's prosecutors saddled two Anchorage diesel mechanics with felony records and roughly $66,000 in fines.
Then those two men walked onto the stage at Trump's Wasilla rally.
What Trump did next, right there at the podium, changed both of their lives on the spot.
Two Alaska Mechanics Got Pardons Signed Right At the Podium
Trump came to Wasilla to fire up the crowd for Senator Dan Sullivan and the Republican ticket.
In the middle of the rally, he pulled out pardons for Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming.
He signed both of them on stage, by hand.
That was a deliberate jab at the autopen pardons that went out under Biden's name.
"I love doing this stuff," Trump told the crowd.
So what did these two men do to earn a federal rap sheet?
Czubak and Fleming co-owned Arm Rippin Toys, a diesel repair shop in Anchorage.
By the government's count, the shop stripped emissions gear from at least 37 diesel vehicles over roughly 14 months starting in mid-2019.
In 2022, Czubak and Fleming pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act.
The sentence was probation on top of those fines.
A third co-owner of the shop was caught up in the same case, and Trump made clear all three were getting unconditional pardons.
That's $66,000 for doing what their customers needed done to survive an Alaska winter.
Trump laid out the case in plain English – in Alaska's brutal cold, pulling out the emissions equipment is what keeps an engine alive.
Then one of the mechanics told the crowd what the case had cost them.
"It really did destroy us. It destroyed friendships. It destroyed families."
Biden's EPA Treated Cold Weather Truck Repairs Like Organized Crime
Czubak and Fleming weren't alone.
In early July, Trump pardoned at least nine people convicted of tampering with diesel emissions controls.
One of them was Mac Spurlock, a Wasilla mechanic who owned Matanuska Diesel and served in the Alaska Air National Guard.
Sullivan said about 30 armed EPA agents hit Spurlock's shop in a raid he compared to a military operation.
Trump said those men were "persecuted by the Biden Administration" for doing repair work.
By January 2026, the Trump administration had announced it would stop bringing criminal cases over so-called defeat devices, whether the target built them, sold them, or installed them.
The real villain in this story is a frozen liquid.
Modern diesel trucks run on an EPA-mandated system that depends on diesel exhaust fluid.
That fluid freezes at 12 degrees Fahrenheit.
When it can't warm up fast enough, the emissions system can choke down or shut off an engine that is otherwise running perfectly.
In Alaska, that can mean a dead truck on an empty highway at 30 below.
An Alaska transportation company president told Fox News the exhaust fluid systems fail there roughly 85 percent of the time.
In a September 21 post, Sullivan pinned the problem on Obama-era diesel rules and called the cold-weather shutdowns a safety threat to Alaskans.
That isn't a talking point up there.
It's a stranded plow driver, a dead fuel truck, or a family stuck in the cold miles from the nearest town.
Sullivan calls the rules "a compliance trap for the men and women who keep Alaska moving."
His Cold Weather Diesel Reliability Act would let trucks and equipment that mostly run in cold regions skip those automatic shutdowns.
The bill has cleared the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and is waiting on a vote from the full Senate.
Washington Made Felons Out of the Men Who Keep Alaska Running
Biden's Justice Department looked at a mechanic keeping a pickup alive in an Alaska winter and saw a criminal.
These weren't cartel smugglers or gun runners.
They were small-shop guys whose customers needed a truck that starts every morning.
Merrick Garland's Justice Department had a wide-open border and fentanyl pouring into American towns.
It still found the time to build felony cases against diesel tuners in Anchorage.
Washington wrote a rule that fails in the cold, then prosecuted the people who made it work.
Every one of these pardons is a receipt for how the Biden crowd treated rural America – like a crime scene.
That same rally was built around Alaska energy deals, with Trump promising Alaskans the permits they need to start building right away.
Sullivan wrote the legislative fix, and Trump wiped out the convictions.
But the frozen fluid rule is still on the books.
Until Sullivan's bill passes, the next Democrat in the White House can send the armed agents right back to the same shops.
Sources:
- Bob Hoge, "'I Love Doing This Stuff': Trump Pardons Two Alaska Mechanics Hounded by the Biden Administration," RedState, October 14, 2026.
- Jasmine Baehr, "Trump Signs Pardons for Alaska Diesel Mechanics Onstage During Rally Touting Major Energy Deals," Fox News, October 13, 2026.
- James Cirrone, "Trump Pardons 9 Convicted of Clean Air Act Diesel Tune Violations," Fox News, July 4, 2026.
- U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, "Sullivan, Lummis Introduce Legislation to Fix Onerous Cold Weather Roadblocks for Diesel Engines," U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, November 13, 2025.
