Trump pardons 11 people on eve of country’s Fourth of July celebrations | Donald Trump

Donald Trump pardoned 11 people on Friday; two of them are convicted fraudsters and nine were charged with violating the federal Clean Air Act by disabling or otherwise altering the trucks’ emissions controls.

The executive pardons, which come amid sesquicentennial celebrations in the United States shrouded in extreme heat worsened by greenhouse gas emissions, were among a broader wave of clemency Trump has imposed during his second presidency, especially for those he considers aligned with him.

Among those pardoned was Adam Kidan, the head of a light industry staffing company who was sentenced to nearly six years in prison in 2006 in connection with the purchase of a fleet of gambling boats.

Kidan was a former business partner of Washington, D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The case that sent Kidan to prison was part of a broader investigation into the early 2000s lobbying scandal that centered on Abramoff, Capitol Hill, the U.S. Department of Internal Affairs and some members of George W. Bush’s presidential administration.

news day In March, Kidan reportedly helped Trump host a fundraiser for a Republican congressional candidate from New York’s Long Island at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Another person who received a pardon, meanwhile, was Jack Harvard, who was convicted of bank fraud in the 1980s, according to legal records. Trump cited Harvard’s “good” post-conviction record and its ability to allow soldiers from the United States as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to receive free education at his farm.

The other nine people pardoned Friday had faced Clean Air Act violations during the Biden administration, between non-consecutive Trump White House terms. Trump posted about some of these nine people on his Truth Social platform, arguing that, in his opinion, they were in prison or sent to prison because they were “‘fixing their cars.'”

“I AM RELEASING THEM ALL NOW!” Trump added.

The Clean Air Act-related pardons come just days after Trump signed a memo to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stating that people in the US can repair their vehicles as they wish.

In signing the memo, Trump referenced a diesel mechanic named Troy Lake, whom he pardoned in November and disabled emissions monitoring systems.

In February, the Trump administration separately repealed scientific evidence that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. And it eliminated federal tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks.

The intense heat that gripped much of the United States during the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence would have been “nearly impossible” were it not for the ongoing global climate crisis, according to researchers at Worldwide Weather Attribution. Scientists have found that greenhouse gas emissions primarily triggered this crisis.

Meanwhile, organizers of the Independence Day parade scheduled for Saturday in Washington, D.C., as part of Trump’s Freedom 250 initiative, abruptly canceled the event on the eve of the event, citing an extreme heat warning issued by the National Weather Service.

And on Friday, Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair on the National Mall was temporarily closed after reports that more than 40 visitors were treated for heat-related illnesses. The heat also delayed the opening of the fair on Saturday.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting