I’m all for the freeing him of his crimes when it comes to his crypto anarchic philosophy. But I find it hard to pardon someone for contract killing essentially. Also I’m not an apologist for the FBIs handling of this case either.
The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. He appealed, and the Second Circuit upheld the sentence.
The prosecutors in Maryland then dropped the murder-for-hire charge because there was no point. They said this would allow them to direct their resources to other other cases where justice had not yet been served.
This is all AFAIK, they haven't released the text broadly yet, but his lawyers/etc say he was pardoned for crimes related to drugs.
Even what people call a 'full and unconditional' pardon is usually targeted at something specific, not like "a pardon for anything you may have ever done, anywhere, anytime' which people seem to think it means sometimes.
It's more of a legal term of art to describe pardons that erase convictions, restore rights, etc.
Rather than clemency which, say, commutes your sentence but leaves your conviction intact.
Most recent pardons have been announced in documents labeled "Executive Grant of Clemency", so I don't think "clemency" and "pardons" are as distinct as you're saying.
And while I know you said "usually", I can't help but note that Hunter Biden was pardoned for any federal thing he may have done, anywhere, anytime in the last 10 years. Some of the last-minute pardons were pretty broad as well.