President Donald Trump called two men onto the stage at a campaign rally in Wasilla, Alaska, on Tuesday night — and pardoned them.

White House aide Natalie Harp brought the pardons for Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming on stage for Trump to sign.

“When you give somebody a pardon, they say that means — and I don’t know how this works and why it’s an expression, but it’s well-used — that means you’re as clean as a newborn baby’s ass. I never understood that. Why is that so clean?” Trump said.

Czubak and Fleming pleaded guilty in 2022 to violating the Clean Air Act through their car repair shop, which they co-owned with Michael Wayne Hanzuk. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the trio tampered with federally mandated monitoring devices on private and commercial diesel vehicles and removed required air pollution control equipment on at least 37 vehicles.

President Donald Trump prepares to sign pardons Tuesday for Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming, right, at a campaign rally at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, Alaska.

via Associated Press

The repair shop made around $100,000 removing the equipment, which, according to the Justice Department, increased emissions of particulate matter per vehicle by a factor of about 40 times; nitrogen oxides by a factor of about 310 times; carbon monoxide by a factor of about 120 times; and non-methane hydrocarbons by a factor of about 1,100 times.

“Installing emissions defeat equipment in passenger vehicles results in a massive increase in air pollution from even a single vehicle,” Special Agent in Charge Scot Adair of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division in Alaska said in a 2022 statement. “EPA and its law enforcement partners will continue to hold accountable those who jeopardize human health and the environment for the sake of profit.”

Trump made no mention of that onstage Tuesday, instead claiming they’d been “wrongly charged” in a case that “viciously targeted the Alaskan way of life.”

The men were sentenced to five years of probation, $66,000 in fines and 180 days of community service.