Trump pardons two Anchorage diesel shop owners onstage at Wasilla campaign rally

President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming, two co-owners of an Anchorage diesel repair shop, signing the pardons onstage at a campaign rally in Wasilla.

Czubak and Fleming co-owned Arm Rippin Toys, Inc., and pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act. According to court documents cited by the U.S. Attorney's Office, they tampered with emissions monitoring devices and removed pollution control equipment on at least 37 diesel vehicles between July 2019 and September 2020. The office said the shop collected about $100,000 for the work.

Trump had just called up Mackenzie "Mac" Spurlock, a Wasilla diesel mechanic he pardoned in July. "Two other Wasilla truckers were also wrongly charged, and I am pleased to announce that I am pardoning them too, effective immediately," Trump said, according to a transcript of the rally. He called the men up, said he was giving "each one of the three an unconditional pardon" and signed the pardons in front of the crowd.

"They want to put him in jail for 10 years because they fixed an engine," Trump told the crowd. The conspiracy charge the men pleaded to carries up to five years in prison. Czubak was sentenced to five years' probation, a $66,000 fine and 180 hours of community service, and Fleming was sentenced in February 2023 to pay a $66,000 fine, according to the Justice Department.

"It destroyed friendships. It destroyed families," one of the pardoned men said from the stage. "We're not criminals. We're not trying to hurt anybody." One of the two closed by telling the crowd, "Let's reelect Dan Sullivan, let's reelect Nick, let's get it done."

Spurlock had been sentenced to five years' probation and a $32,000 fine for tampering with a Clean Air Act monitoring device, according to the Justice Department's clemency list. On Sept. 3, Trump pardoned the shop's third co-owner, Michael Hanzuk II, and Daniel Chase, who was convicted of the same tampering offense as Spurlock in Alaska. Trump credited Sen. Dan Sullivan, Rep. Nick Begich and Gov. Mike Dunleavy with urging Spurlock's pardon.

Sullivan argues federal diesel rules do not fit Alaska. At a Sept. 16 Senate committee meeting, he said diesel exhaust fluid, which modern diesel engines are required to use, "freezes at just 12 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a balmy day in my state." Alaska News reported in March that the fluid can force diesels to shut down in deep cold.

Sullivan and Begich are on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. Their opponents include Democrat Mary Peltola and independent Bill Hill, respectively.