The US military judge who last week threw out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession to the September 11 attacks has previously argued that "conservative tendencies" within the armed forces were helping fuel a rise in domestic extremism. Lt Col Michael Schrama, who is presiding over the military commission handling the 9/11 case, ruled that the confession was not given voluntarily and pushed the trial's start date back from January 2027 to June 2028, a decision made public only days before the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The ruling has drawn criticism, including from author Gerald Posner, who called it a "shameful prelude" to the anniversary, and has prompted renewed scrutiny of Schrama's past writings.

In a 2023 essay for War on the Rocks, Schrama argued for creating a specific criminal offence for domestic extremism in the military legal code, citing a 2021 study that found military personnel were behind 17.6% of domestic terrorism plots and attacks, and noting that 12% of those charged over the January 2021 Capitol riot had military backgrounds. He wrote that "military institutions tend to become more conservative and isolated from civilian society", making young service members "easy prey for the extreme right-wing groups that relate through similar conservative ideology". Schrama, an Air Force judge specialising in military and environmental law, also referenced a 2019 case involving a Coast Guard officer who plotted violence against Democratic politicians and journalists, arguing existing law lacked adequate tools to prosecute such extremism.