"Legal authorities, then, are split on the subject of how the law should understand pardons; but because some pardons are understood as being based on the pardoned person’s factual innocence, I doubt that any judge today would genuinely view acceptance of pardon as always being an admission of guilt."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/26/is-accepting-a-pardon-an-admission-of-guilt/