Thread by @carolrosenberg

Good morning from Guantanamo's Camp Justice. The military is getting ready to open nine days of hearings devoted to testimony from the psychologists who personally waterboarded the man accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks.

Defense lawyers have called them as witnesses.
Gavel down at 9 a.m.
nytimes.com/2020/01/20/us/…

We have 10 reporters and a sketch artist heading over to the court at 8 a.m. for the hearing.
It is unclear when the testimony will start. The judge has to first take attendance, disclose the details of chambers conferences and read waiver rights to the five defendants.

Also, some defense teams are disconcerted by 35 pages of new classification guidance they got from the prosecution on Thursday night. It apparently changes the rules of which questions can be asked in open court. And which have to be taken to closed, national security sessions.

Latest: I'm hearing that prosecutors notified defense lawyers last night that more classification guidance is coming down the pipeline, and it will be handed out in court today.

Update: Court is still due to start at 9 a.m. But I hear that the first two defendants will be missing at the start, arriving later in the morning, around 10 a.m.
KSM and Walid Bin Attash have military medical appointments (physical therapy) that the prison didn't reschedule.

For those interested, this @NYTimes Editor's Note from 2014.
atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/07/dea…

@nytimes Here at the press room, we see the war court techs are testing the censorship switch that mutes the audio to the public. Broadcasts white noise. Meantime, here at Camp Justice, the Navy is broadcasting the Star Spangled Banner over the base wide public address system.

@nytimes The media is heading up to court. Will catch you up later.

My midday update from Guantanamo. I’m watching in person today for courtroom dynamics rather than tweeting from a static screen on questioner and witness. nytimes.com/2020/01/21/us/…

My report on today's remarkable day at the Guantanamo war court when the 9/11 trial defendant who was waterboarded by the CIA, KSM, watched a defense lawyer question the psychologist who waterboarded him.
nytimes.com/2020/01/21/us/…

I was in court all day, and neglected this feed. So a few items you won't find in the news columns:
--A long awaited logistics briefing on Pentagon preparations to hold the 9/11 trial a year from now is a classified PowerPoint. So we can't see it.

--Prosecutors say Drs. Mitchell and Jessen "do not intend" to return to Gitmo after this two-week session. The judge has said their testimony can resume in the February hearing, if necessary -- suggesting they'll testify by videolink from war court headquarters near the Pentagon.

--For today's remarkable hearing, war court staff assigned the journalist who wrote "The Hunt for KSM" the sole obstructed-view seat in the media section. After protests, they put an Army sergeant chaperone in the seat. He spent much of the hearing reading "Starship Troopers."

Prosecutors say that some of Dr. James Mitchell's book "Enhanced Interrogation" is now considered classified. He testified that he submitted it to the CIA's Publication Review Board, which ran it past the Department of Defense, which deleted some material too.

A lawyer asked Dr. Mitchell in court about his reaction to the ex-post classification. He replied that someone should "buy the publication rights and take it off the market." (Drawing raucous laughter in the gallery -- from behind a curtain where some 9/11 victims were watching.)

--I asked Dr. Mitchell last week when he last visited Guantanamo Bay. He declined to say.

Today he answered in court: "Probably 2003-2004."
(That's when Gitmo had a black site. The CIA closed it before the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul that Gitmo captives could consult lawyers.)