It worked to keep the media at bay but it has no legal bearing.

It is of little service to assert or deny an analogy between amnesty and pardon. Mr. Justice Field, in Knote v. United States, 95 U. S. 149, 95 U. S. 153, said that "the distinction between them is one rather of philological interest than of legal importance."

Aka you can claim that it carries an imputation of guilt... but it does not any more than taking the 5th (as was the case in Burdick) implies an imputation of guilt.