When the pardon power was given to the President was this meant to just be able to pardon single individuals or did this also give authority to grant amnesty to large groups like illegal immigrants.?
The president’s pardon power has always been understood to be plenary. Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of the Sedition Act convicts, Andrew Johnson pardoned many, many people in the wake of the Civil War, and Jimmy Carter pardoned all of the Vietnam draft evaders in the 1970s, all without eliciting the objection that this exceeded their pardon power’s limits.
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