Amnesty is frequently used to describe legislation and executive orders (to suspend prosecution) that can be reversed. However, there is also an official Presidential pardon applied to a group that is also known as amnesty.
I’m not sure if the terminology changes a bit and the term ‘clemency’ is used, but it certain that there is amnesty (by whatever name) that carries the full status of pardon as in the Ex Parte Garland ruling.
All I know is that the pardon/amnesty/forgiveness issues will be serious s**t storms in the next 65 days.
Someone joked “Will be see them traded on some new Internet Exchange?”
Some of my former partners are already planning “pardon parties” on the night of January 19 so they can all kibitz about who got walking papers and who did not.
A friend still in DC at another firm is circulating a paper tonight entitled “Obama’s Last Three Outrages.”
One will be the pardons, another giving Guantanamo back to the Cubans.... and everyone is trying to guess what #3 will be.