A few days ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit threw out every pre-trial order issued over the past three-and-a-half years and every ruling on appeal of those orders in the case of Abd Al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Al-Nashiri, the accused USS Cole bomber who was being tried by a military commission at Guantanamo.
It was discovered that the former trial judge, Air Force Col. Vance Spath, was concurrently applying for a position with the Justice Department as an immigration judge. Both Spath and the U.S. government vigorously attempted to conceal this evident conflict of interest.