Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date
Air Force judge cited involuntary confession, rescheduling the long-delayed trial
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date
Photograph: thedailybs.com (embedded from source)
What this story says
- An Air Force judge, Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, has ruled that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession in the 9/11 case was not voluntary and has therefore been dismissed.
- Schrama has set the trial date for June 2028, rejecting prosecutors' request for a January 2027 start.
- Schrama previously wrote in a 2023 essay that military extremism is fueled by 'conservative tendencies' reinforced by right-wing groups.
- A 2021 CSIS study cited by Schrama indicated military personnel were responsible for 17.6% of domestic terrorism plots and attacks.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. Coverage measured .
Trust
45/100
Craft
35/100
Hype
70/100
6 sources · methodology
Thin on the left so far
None of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated left.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, an Air Force judge, has dismissed the 2007 confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Schrama ruled that the confession was not given voluntarily. He also set the trial date for June 2028, declining prosecutors' request to begin the proceedings in January 2027. The decision could affect the long-delayed legal process for Mohammed, who has been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2003.
Disagreement on trial date
Fox News reports that Lt. Col. Michael Schrama set the 9/11 trial date for June 2028, not January 2027 as prosecutors requested. No other outlet specified the requested trial date or the date set by the judge.
What the coverage left out
None of the right-rated reports mention the Pentagon's actions beyond the judge's ruling. No left-rated outlet ran this story at all.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 3 times, most recently on 1 Sept 2026, 16:00, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated left has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Centre
1 rated outlet
- The centre-rated report from cedarnews.net stated that the judge who dismissed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession was Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, an Air Force judge overseeing the 9/11 trial. It noted that Schrama wrote a 2023 essay concerning domestic extremism within military ranks. The report indicated that the initial account of this story was published by Fox News and that additional verified details were not immediately available.
Right
5 rated outlets
- The right-rated reports focused on Lt. Col. Michael Schrama's ruling to toss Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession, citing it was not voluntary. Several reports, including the Geller Report and Fox News, highlighted Schrama's 2023 essay where he argued that military extremism is fueled by 'conservative tendencies' reinforced by right-wing groups. The Geller Report quoted Schrama's essay stating military institutions become more conservative and isolated from civilian society, making young members 'easy prey' for right-wing groups with similar ideology. Fox News and the Geller Report also cited Schrama's reference to a 2021 CSIS study that claimed military personnel were responsible for 17.6% of domestic terrorism plots and attacks. The Geller Report and thedailybs.com mentioned Schrama's proposal to codify domestic extremism as a punitive article under the military code. The Geller Report also included commentary describing judges as 'radical leftwing' and 'judicial saboteurs'.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 0% are rated left, 17% are rated centre, 83% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date biased?
- Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date is one event reported by 6 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated left had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Judge tosses 9/11 suspect's confession, sets trial date?
- 6 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- Why was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession dismissed?
- Air Force Judge Lt. Col. Michael Schrama dismissed the confession because he ruled it was not given voluntarily. This decision could impact the prosecution of the alleged 9/11 mastermind.
- When is the new trial date for the 9/11 case?
- Lt. Col. Michael Schrama has set the trial date for June 2028. This is a rescheduling from the January 2027 date that prosecutors had requested.
- What has the judge written about extremism in the military?
- In a 2023 essay, Lt. Col. Michael Schrama wrote that military extremism is fueled by 'conservative tendencies' reinforced by right-wing groups. He also cited a study indicating military personnel were involved in a significant percentage of domestic terrorism plots.
Read it at the source
6 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Centre
1Right
5- Judge Who Tossed 9/11 Mastermind’s Confession Blamed ‘Conservative Tendencies’ for Rising Extremism (opens Geller Report in a new tab)
Geller Report — is Geller Report biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Judge who axed 9/11 mastermind’s confession blamed military’s ‘conservative tendencies’ for rising ‘extremism’ (opens wfmd.com in a new tab)
- Pentagon orders emergency de-conservatization training after 9/11 judge raises military extremism concerns - The Daily Bo Snerdley (opens thedailybs.com in a new tab)
thedailybs.com — is thedailybs.com biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Judge who axed 9/11 mastermind's confession blamed military’s ‘conservative tendencies’ for rising ‘extremism’ – Democratic Accent (opens democraticaccent.com in a new tab)
democraticaccent.com — is democraticaccent.com biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Judge who axed 9/11 mastermind's confession blamed military’s ‘conservative tendencies’ for rising ‘extremism’ (opens Fox News in a new tab)
Not rated
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.


