Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “more transparency” from the federal government was needed on the mysterious drones seen over the East Coast.

Partial transcript as follows:

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about President Biden. This past week, he had this record number of commutations, 1500 Americans more than any president in any single day. Among them, though, there was a judge involved in a so called “Cash for kids” scheme–

KLOBUCHAR: I did not like that one. Nope.

BRENNAN: –that sent thousands to jail for millions of dollars, a man who committed tax fraud at a cost of more than $1.6 billion described as ‘the most prolific, pernicious, utterly unrepented tax cheat in U.S. history,’ a woman who was involved in a $26 million scheme to defraud Medicare. Are you comfortable with some of these decisions?

KLOBUCHAR: No. There’s also a man in Duluth that was running a major drug house, basically, and had all this money under his bathroom tiles was also commuted. So the way I look at is this- I also didn’t agree with the pardon of the president’s son. I also have not agreed with a number of pardons that President Trump gave. So I believe, and I’ve long advocated for this, that while the pardon ability is part of our Constitution, we’re not going to change that right? Go way back to President Lincoln, who made hard decisions himself about deserters from the army, things like that. That’s been going on a long time, but we should have some kind of an outside board that governors have. Governors have the ability to give mercy to people after years have gone by, but a lot of them have boards that make recommendations and other things, instead of people just doing it in the middle of the night and people in the White House. This makes no sense to me–

BRENNAN: Well, this is what was so surprising, because the White House described it as just based on a broad category and not the specifics of the case. Was that prudent?

KLOBUCHAR: Exactly. And so, I have no doubt there were some righteous pardons in this group. Okay, let’s say that. Now I believe that there were, but there were a number that I think make no sense at all. So instead of doing a whole category, why don’t in a coming year before the end of a president’s term, if that’s when they’re mostly going to do these, that a board looks at these and looks at them individually, when people petition for them based on the facts, instead of just in a large group. So large groups have been done before, I believe, but I just, I think that this whole process cries out for reform, because otherwise you undermine the justice system. And again, I emphasize, this also happened in a big way under President Trump, and you undermine the work of these line FBI agents, these line prosecutors who have taken on these cases, followed the sentencing guidelines and made a decision. Might you want mercy 10 years later? Yes, you might. But let’s at least look at these on a factual basis and a risk basis, instead of just in the middle of the night a month before a president leaves.

Follow Pam Key on X @pamkeyNEN