Edward Snowden makes 'moral' case for presidential pardon
Out of curiosity - how powerful is a presidential pardon?Can a US president basically compose an edict saying 'This man is a bleeding hero and no branch of the US government will ever hold any of his actions related to incident X against him, now or in the future or else they shall snuff it!' and have this respected by his successors?Or may a presidential pardon be reversed by any successor?Is it narrowly defined, eg. the pardonee (is that even a word) may not be prosecuted for his violation of US code such-and-such, section so-so committed on or before date DDMMYY? (Leaving any successor free to throw the book at him for anything not explicitly covered by the issued pardon?)Hm. Off to Google I go; I find the concept somewhat intriguing.