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Former U.S. President Donald Trump has granted pardons to nine individuals convicted of violating the Clean Air Act, just before the July 4 weekend, according to a statement from the White House.

Trump first revealed the pardons on his social media platform, Truth Social, on July 3. In his post, he mentioned signing pardons for six aftermarket diesel tuners who, according to him, were “persecuted by the Biden Administration” merely for “fixing their car.” However, later reports from the Associated Press clarified that nine of the eleven individuals pardoned on July 3 were tied to Clean Air Act violations. They were accused of disabling emission monitoring systems or selling devices that allowed vehicles to bypass emissions controls during the Biden Administration. White House officials confirmed their identities to CBS News and the Associated Press.

Trump wrote, “It is my great honor to have just signed pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison for ‘fixing their car.’ While I know this sounds ridiculous, it is nevertheless a fact and part of the weaponization and stupidity that our country had to endure during four long years of Sleepy Joe Biden. I am setting them all free, right now.”

The pardons came shortly after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a memo on July 1 reaffirming Americans’ right to repair their vehicles. The document emphasized the right-to-repair for non-road diesel equipment and modifications to diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) systems. According to the EPA memo, anti-tampering provisions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) had been restricting Americans from effectively repairing their vehicles.

The memo further explained, “The CAA clearly states that temporary overrides of emission control systems are permitted when carried out for the ‘purpose of repair’ to restore proper functionality. Therefore, the EPA’s guidance confirms that manufacturers of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles have a long-standing legal responsibility to provide service information, training materials, and tools required to diagnose and repair vehicles, including defective DEF systems, on reasonable terms.”

Documents from the Biden-era Department of Justice indicated that several of the individuals pardoned were engaged in offering full emissions control deletion services for medium and commercial trucks. During Trump’s presidency, however, the Justice Department had been instructed to cease pursuing criminal charges against individuals selling emissions defeat devices, as per a memo reviewed by CBS News earlier in January.

The EPA’s July 1 directive also allowed the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) to act as an alternative certification body for aftermarket vehicle components. This move enables Americans to use SEMA’s Certified Emissions program to demonstrate compliance with federal emissions standards, effectively expediting the approval and regulatory process for aftermarket parts.