On Feb. 7, 2022, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a member of the Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. It was about the case of Montez Lee, a Rochester, Minnesota, man sentenced to 10 years in prison for setting a fire that killed a man during the Black Lives Matter riot in Minneapolis. The background:

It happened in a pawn shop on May 28, 2020. Lee and others broke into the shop, and video showed looters ransacking the store. Lee then poured a liquid, an accelerant, from a can all across the floor. Lee then lit the fire. More video showed him boasting shortly afterward about what he had done. "F*** this place," Lee said. "We're gonna burn this bitch down." Video then showed, according to government documents, Lee and others "joking about restaurants they are going to 'hit' next."