Thread by @carolrosenberg

BREAKING: The military judge in Guantanamo's 9/11 case has submitted his retirement papers. He has notified the chief war court judge that he can preside until April 24.
His next hearing date was not until June.

Air Force Col. W. Shane Cohen, the judge, got the case in June. He had set a jury selection date for January 2021.
Now a new judge, not yet chosen, will inherit the complex history...
nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/…

Colonel Cohen is the third military judge to preside in the long-running pretrial hearings in the complex, five-defendant death-penalty case.
About the trial...
nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/…

So he leaves the case in 30 days unless the chief judge, Army Col. Douglas Watkins, names a replacement sooner.
Lots of implications here, including the two CIA contract psychologists Mitchell and Jessen have not finished their suppression motion testimony.

Colonel Cohen is retiring after two decades of service in the U.S. military. He was commissioned in the Air Force in 1998, the same year he got his law degree from @BYUlaw.

The story: The looming departure of the judge, coupled with a current shutdown of legal team access to Guantanamo's prison zone because of the coronavirus pandemic, cast a shadow on the prospects of meeting the trial start date of Jan. 22, 2021.
nytimes.com/2020/03/25/us/…

Also, failed to mention... You can read the judge's letter yourself. It's linked inside the story.