2016 Postmortem

Commutations. In both cases you have to have been found guilty of a federal crime to receive a pardon. I could find nothing that would permit a President to issue a pardon were no conviction had yet occurred. And the Pardon Statute requires that the conviction have occurred at least 5 years prior to the Pardon or Commutation of sentence.

Therefore it would appear to me that a Pardon is not plausible. Which is why I have proposed the retroactive authorization of the server. President Obama has the power to retroactively authorize the use of the server for the reasons I gave. I think that he could just do it. I don't even believe it would require an Executive Order for the two reasons I gave; 1)since he gave the original order for all federal employees to use a .gov email address and 2) any Agency head can exempt an employee from compliance with any Federal or Agency Policy should there be a reason that doesn't violate federal law.