President Donald Trump on Friday granted pardons to 11 people, the White House said, in a batch that included a former business partner of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and nine people the administration said had been prosecuted in connection with disabling or defeating emissions controls on vehicles under the Clean Air Act, according to The Associated Press.
The AP reported that the nine emissions-related recipients were described by the White House as having helped people bypass vehicle emissions systems or sold devices that allowed those systems to be bypassed.
One of those pardoned was Mackenzie Spurlock, 31, the owner of Matanuska Diesel, a shop in Wasilla, Alaska, the AP reported. Prosecutors said he collected at least $30,000 for removing emissions controls from at least 20 vehicles; he pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to probation and fined $32,000. The White House also described the pardon of a ranch owner it identified as Jack Harvard, citing his post-conviction record and his allowing U.S. and NATO troops to train on his land, according to the AP.
The Abramoff connection
Trump also pardoned Adam Kidan, a former business partner of Abramoff, the AP reported. Kidan pleaded guilty in 2005 to fraud and conspiracy tied to the purchase of a fleet of gambling boats and was sentenced in 2006 to nearly six years in prison. The White House said that after his release in 2009 Kidan built a career in the staffing industry and now serves as president of a workforce firm, according to the AP. Abramoff was at the center of one of Washington's largest lobbying corruption scandals of the 2000s.
A pattern of clemency for emissions cases and allies
The pardons fit a broader approach Trump has taken toward vehicle-emissions enforcement. The AP noted that Trump previously pardoned a Wyoming man who had pleaded guilty to disabling emissions controls on commercial trucks, and that the president has issued a memorandum directing the Environmental Protection Agency to examine making it easier for Americans to alter emissions-control devices. Removing such controls is commonly referred to as a "diesel delete."
The latest grants add to an unusually large clemency record. Reporting by Forbes and ProPublica has documented that Trump's second-term clemency has repeatedly benefited donors, business allies and people who hired well-connected lobbyists, and that Democratic lawmakers have written to numerous recipients asking whether they received favorable treatment through what the lawmakers called a possible "pay-to-play" arrangement. Forbes reported that a June 2026 Reuters review found that the vast majority of Trump's clemency grants did not meet longstanding Justice Department guidelines.
Why it matters and what to watch
The president's clemency power under the Constitution is broad and is not subject to congressional override, which limits the avenues available to critics of the pardons. Attention now turns to whether the EPA acts on Trump's memorandum on emissions-control devices, and whether congressional Democrats pursue the inquiries into the clemency process that Forbes and ProPublica have described.