President Donald Trump set off a stream of mockery and online backlash after he issued a full and unconditional pardon to a Southern California portable toilet executive convicted of illegally dumping sludge.
According to New York Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel, Trump pardoned Arie Eric De Jong III, a 59-year-old executive at Diamond Environmental Services, a San Marcos, California-based portable toilet company. De Jong, the company’s owner, pleaded guilty in 2017 to illegally disposing of sludge in multiple cities across Southern California, according to media reports.
He was sentenced to five years in 2018, but prison records show he was released later that same year, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Friday.
The MAGA leader’s latest pardon move drew immediate ridicule on social media, where critics wasted no time mocking the decision.
“Another fraudster protected by Trump!” the official X account for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office wrote, before posting “Holy” next to a pile of poo emoji.
“He spent more time thinking about literal s— than how to bring down the cost of groceries,” Democratic activist Julie Alderman Boudreau posted to X.
“Birds of a feather…,” commented X user @ seksi.
“The. Best. Porta-Potty. People,” Nicholas A. Kovach, a Fox News producer in Cleveland, wrote online.
“Flooding the swamp with BS since 2015,” X user Dana Rosebud told her followers.
HOLY
Another fraudster protected by Trump! https://t.co/vUWuyOmU6i — Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) January 16, 2026
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