WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a historic display of executive compassion, former President Donald J. Trump has issued full pardons to nine valiant Americans convicted of the so-called crime of making their diesel trucks louder and smokier by disabling emission controls, calling them “the true patriots of the pickup.”

“These hardworking Americans were not criminals—they were persecuted by radical environmentalists for fixing their own cars the way God and Henry Ford intended,” Trump declared at a Mar-a-Lago press event, flanked by two Ford F-350s spewing celebratory black smoke rings. “Frankly, if more Americans rolled coal, the economy and the country would be stronger.”

The newly-pardoned, known as the ‘Diesel 9,’ were originally sentenced under the Clean Air Act for what critics have deemed “acts of mechanical heroism.” George Riggins, a freed Texas diesel enthusiast, announced, “I did nothing wrong except turn my truck into a freedom cannon. If loving NOx is a crime, lock me up again!”

“People say it’s illegal to hotwire your own EGR valve, but that’s just Big EPA propaganda,” said Tammy Lorsch, another pardon recipient. “It’s not pollution if it comes from an American-made engine.”

EPA officials have expressed concern, but Trump supporters remain unfazed. “If you can’t chew through the air in your town, is it really America?” pondered Chad Munson, director of the National Association for Liberty Exhaust.

The pardons have inspired a new movement: #UnplugThePlug, with enthusiasts nationwide rallying for the right to “restore classic clouds to American skies.”

In a related story, Trump hinted he may next pardon “anyone persecuted for removing those annoying seatbelt beepers.”