THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF BUSH'S
CYBER-GURU -- WELCOME TO CYBERGATE
by Simon Worrall
Maxim, February,
2010
One year ago, as he
was poised to testify in the case of the disputed 2004 election, Michael
Connell met his death in a fiery plane crash. Was he the victim of
an unfortunate accident or of a right-wing conspiracy intent on
silencing one of its own?
Shortly before six
o'clock on the evening of December 19, 2008, a man standing outside his
home in Lake Township Ohio heard the whine of an engine in the sky above
him. Moments later two red lights broke through the low clouds, heading
almost directly toward the ground.
It was a light
aircraft, and for a second, as it descended below the tree line the man
thought it would climb back up. Instead, there was a terrible thud, and
the sky turned orange.
When the fire crews
arrived, they found the burning wreckage of a Piper Saratoga strewn
across a vacant lot. The plane had narrowly missed a house, but the
explosion was so intense that the home's plastic siding was on fire. So
was the grass. The pilot had been thrown from the plane and died
instantly. Body parts and pieces of twisted metal were scattered
everywhere. A prayer book lay open on the ground, its pages on fire.
Officials
survey the wreckage of Michael Connell's Piper Saratoga, December 19,
2008
The crash would have
remained a private tragedy confined to the pages of the local press and
the hearts of the pilot's widow and four children, but within days the
blogosphere was abuzz with rumors and conspiracy theories: The
plane, it was said, had been sabotaged and the pilot murdered to coverup
the GOP's alleged theft of the Ohio vote in the 2004 presidential
election. At the center of this plot was the Saratoga's pilot, a
prodigiously gifted IT expert named Michael Connell, whose altar boy
charm and technical brilliance had made him the computer whiz of choice
for the Republican Party. Left-wing Web sites openly referred to Connell
as "Bush's vote rigger" and claimed that his fingerprints were on all
the most controversial elections in recent history. There were dark
whispers of electronic pulses or sniper fire being used to bring down
the plane -- a blackops attack designed to keep him from testifying
against his former cronies. Right-wing bloggers and talkshow hosts
derided such claims as the twisted delusions of liberal nut jobs and
tinfoil hatters. The mainstream press sat on its hands. But while the
rumors, innuendos, and allegations continue to swirl through the ether,
evidence has recently emerged that suggests the Ohio vote may have been
hacked, and that Connell was involved.
Michael Connell
in 2004 with one of the Web sites he designed for the GOP
Born in 1963 in
Peoria, Illinois into a large Irish-American family, Michael Connell was
a lifelong Republican and a devout Roman Catholic who went to Mass every
day and wore a wristband saying WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? What Connell did
was realize the potential of the Internet to shape politics. While
still in his 20s, he worked as finance director for Republican
Congressman Jim Leach, and as director of voter programs for Senator Dan
Coats of Indiana. In1988 Connell developed a voter contact database for
George H.W. Bush, thus inaugurating a long association with the Bush
family: Connell worked on Jeb's gubernatorial campaign in Florida in
1998; two years later he was the chief architect of George W. Bush's Web
site as Dubya launched his bid for the White House.
Karl Rove and
George W. Bush, back in office, 2005
But it was while
serving as tech guru to Karl Rove that Connell developed his deepest and
perhaps most problematic professional relationship. Recruited in the
late '80s, Connell became Rove's most trusted cyberlieutenant: a Web
wizard who could turn portals into power and who would gain access to
the very heights of American politics by the time he reached 30 years
old. Connell's two Ohio-based companies, New Media Communications and
GovTech, became virtual research and development labs for the Republican
Party, building and managing Websites and e-mail accounts for both
Presidents Bush and a long list of leading Republicans. GovTech also
designed and managed numerous Congressional IT systems, including those
for the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, putting Connell
"behind the fire wall" of some of the most sensitive government Web
sites from the safety of the Bush White House.
A Diebold
voting machine
"Mike was known as
the GOP's Mister Fix-It," says Stephen Spoonamore, an IT security expert
and friend of Connell's. "He built really intelligent tools that allowed
people who wanted to win elections do a better job organizing their
data." But aside from his more legitimate business, Connell was no
stranger to the darker side of American politics. He was forced to
resign from Senator Coats' campaign for his involvement in ethical
violations. Connell's was also the hand behind the Web site for the
notorious Swift Boat Veterans' for Truth smear campaign against John
Kerry and GWB43.com, the secret e-mail account used by Rove and dozens
of other White House staffers.
Just six weeks
before his death, Connell had given a deposition in an Ohio lawsuit that
accused Rove, Bush, and Co. of something far more serious than merely
scrubbing e-mails: the theft of the 2004 Ohio vote. "This is the
biggest scandal in our history," says Mark Crispin Miller, a professor
at New York University who has written extensively about electronic
voter fraud. "Watergate grew out of a paranoid attempt to disable the
opposition. But Ohio was exponentially different. We're talking about a
systematic, centralized attempt to rig the voting system."
Jesse Jackson
and Cliff Arnebeck testify before the House Judiciary Committee
regarding the disputed 2004 Ohio vote
"We decided to try
to bring a racketeering claim against Rove under Ohio law," says Cliff
Arnebeck, the attorney who brought the suit, a broad-shouldered man with
a Senatorial air dressed in a blue blazer. "We detected a pattern of
criminal activity, and we identified Connell as a key witness, as the
implementer for Rove."
By any calculation,
the Ohio 2004 election was a black day for American democracy. Lou
Harris, known as the "father of modern political polling," and a man not
given to hyperbole, called it "as dirty an election as America has ever
seen." All the exit polls suggested Ohio would go to Kerry. But when
the vote was counted George Bush had won by132,685 votes, adding Ohio's
crucial 20 Electoral College votes to his tally. And putting him, not
Kerry, into the White House. It has since been alleged that at several
points on election night, the Ohio secretary of state's official
Website, which was responsible for reporting the results, was being
hosted by a server in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Ohio's secretary of
state in 2004 was a fiercely partisan Christian named Ken Blackwell.
Blackwell had hired a company called GDC Limited to run the IT systems,
which had subcontracted the job to Michael Connell's company, GovTech.
Connell had in turn subcontracted SMARTech, an IT firm based in
Chattanooga, to act, it was claimed, as a backup server.
An Ohio voter
at the polls during the 2004 election
"By looking at the
URLs on the Website, we discovered that there were three points on
election night when SMARTech's computers took over from the secretary of
state," says Arnebeck. "It is during that period that we believe votes
were manipulated."
In computer jargon
it is known as a man-in-the-middle attack.
"At the time I
didn't know who SMARTech were,"says IT expert Stephen Spoonamore,
opening a file on his computer showing the Internet architecture map of
the 2004 Ohio election. He points to a red box in the bottom right-hand
corner showing SMARTech's server. "Then I found out: They host Rove's
e-mails. They host the RNC's Web site. They host George Bush's Website."
His voice rises in disbelief. "I go, 'Holy shit, this is a
man-in-the-middle attack! These guys have programmed the state's
computers to talk to a company with ties to the Republican Party.' It's
brilliant."
With his wiry hair
and designer glasses, Spoonamore looks like a character in a Tim Burton
movie. A lifelong Republican, he is also one of the world's acknowledged
experts on cybersecurity, with a resume that includes work for the U.S.
armed forces and the FBI. In his spare time he has devoted thousands of
hours to investigating cyberfraud in American elections. "I know I sound
crazy when I talk about this stuff. No one wants to believe it. They
say, 'No one would steal an election.' And I go, 'Yeah, they would. And
that's exactly what they did.'''
Spoonamore believes
that while Michael Connell may have facilitated electoral fraud, he was
really just a tool of more powerful forces. "Mike has been called the
Forrest Gump of GOP IT operations," he says. "And I think there's a
truth to that. I think he was a good guy surrounded by wolves. He was
always going to be the fall guy."
The two men had
gotten to know each other at Spoonamore's Washington, D.C. offices in
late 2005. "The two of us hit it off," recalls Spoonamore. "We were the
same age, the same generation. We had a lot of friends in common." At
the end of the meeting, Connell broached a delicate topic. "Mike asked
me, 'How easy is it to destroy all records of e-mail!"recalls Spoonamore.
"He sort of gestured toward the White House and said, 'Because I have
clients down the street who are working on that problem.' And I
stepped back and said, 'If you are talking about White House e-mail
destruction, I want nothing to do with it.'"
A year later, at an
IT conference in London, Spoonamore confronted the pro-life Connell
about the Ohio election: "He said, 'I'm afraid that in my zeal to save
the babies, the system I built may have been abused.'"
Three days later, in
the back of a cab heading toward the airport, Spoonamore asked Connell
if he would be willing to talk to a Congressional judiciary committee
about what he knew. "I actually took Mike's hand and said, 'If I can
arrange for a private meeting for you to sit down with the committee and
explain what you think may have happened in 2004 and how your systems
may have been abused, will you do it?' And he said, 'Yes.'"
Connell never did
talk to the judiciary committee. But in the months leading up to his
death he was under intense pressure. In an attempt to extricate himself
from the world of politics, he had sold two of his businesses, including
GovTech. Throughout the fall his plane was being tracked by Arnebeck and
his associates so they could serve him with a subpoena. Connell sought
refuge from the maelstrom in his deep Catholic faith. He took to wearing
a scapular, two squares of cloth with religious images favored by devout
Catholics, under his shirt. He went to Mass twice a day and became more
directly involved with the pro-life movement, spending weekends standing
outside abortion clinics. He traveled to Burma and Thailand to work with
religious dissidents and started a Catholic charity in El Salvador.
Finally, on October
8, 2008, Connell was served with his subpoena at College Park Airfield
outside Washington, D.C. Seven weeks later his Piper Saratoga would fall
from the sky.
On December 18,
Connell flew to D.C. to meet with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic
men's organization, about starting a new branch and rebuilding their
Website. He stayed the night at a hotel, got up early to attend Mass
and then a breakfast meeting. At about 11A.M., Connell went to College
Park Airfield to prepare to fly home to Akron. His firm, New Media
Communication, was holding its Christmas party that evening, and he
didn't want to miss it. An experienced pilot with more than 500 hours of
flight time under his belt, Connell waited for the weather to clear.
Shortly after 3:30 P.M., he called his wife, Heather, in Ohio to say he
had his "window." He took off at 3:51 P.M.
At first everything
went fine. On his approach to Akron-Canton Regional Airport, he asked
the tower if there were any reports of icing and was told there were
not. It was certainly dark and cold, with cloud cover at 1,000 feet, but
the plane had a sophisticated autopilot system that would normally bring
it on to the runway, like a homing pigeon. But at 3,200 feet, as Connell
began his descent, air traffic control radioed to say he was off course
by several miles. Connell radioed that he would correct his position.
Something seemed to be wrong with the lateral controls.
The audiotapes of
Connell's last communications with the tower suggest a rising sense of
panic and confusion. Realizing that he is still off course, he asks to
do a 360-degree turn "to reestablish ourselves." It's an unusual
maneuver at this late stage of the approach, and the flight controller
denies the request. Instead, he advises Connell to "climb and maintain
3,000 feet." Seconds later there is a loud rushing sound as the cockpit
bursts open and the engine goes haywire. Connell screams, "Nine nine
November declaring an emergency!" Out of respect for his religious
beliefs -- and his children -- the tower reported that his last words
were, "Oh, God!" In fact, he cries out, "Oh, fuck!" Then the tape goes
dead.
Capt. Lorin Geisner
of the Greentown Fire Department was the first person to arrive at the
scene. "We received a 911 call, so we contacted the tower and asked what
size plane it was and how many souls were on board," he recalls. "But we
were informed that the tower was in lockdown and that no information was
available."
According to
sources, there were other anomalies. Normally, a night crash scene would
be roped off and investigated in daylight. In this case representatives
of the NTSB and FAA used light towers to photograph and document the
scene. Connell's plane was hastily removed to a secure hangar under
cover of darkness. By 6 A.M. the investigators had vanished, leaving
behind them a trail of debris, and one very angry widow.
"How is this
OK?"asks Heather Connell, a chunk of metal from a cardboard box she had
brought in from the garage. She is kneeling on the floor of her
husband's basement office, a tidy space decorated with sleek black
office furniture. A photo of a 26-year-old Connell withGeorge H.W. Bush
sits on the bookshelf next to an action figure of Dubya decked out in
fighter pilot garb. A cascade of frizzy blonde hair tumbles forward over
Heather's face. Her eyes are red from crying. "They think this is part
of the foot pedal."
When I ask how she
met her husband, she starts to hum the '80s hit "Don't You Want Me."
"She was working as waitress in a cocktail bar..." Then her voice
falters. "That much is true. We met in Indiana. He was working for
Senator Coats, and I was going to college and working at a sports bar.
He was with a bunch of interns who came in. I carded every one of them
and was in the process of kicking him out of the bar." She gives a
throaty chuckle. "He was used to people fawning over him, and I think he
liked me because I was mean."
"I didn't go to the
crash site on the night he died," she says, picking another piece of
debris from the box. As her husband began his final descent, Heather and
the rest of the staff gathered at a restaurant for the company's annual
Christmas party. "I got a message that his plane had landed," she
recalls, choking back tears. "So I kept calling and calling." She winces
at the memory. "This is making me sick again." Leaning back in her
chair, she takes a drag of a cigarette. "They told me the plane had
crashed and that he was dead, but I didn't want to believe it. I thought
maybe he was on the way to the hospital, so I didn't go to the crash
site until December 26." Her left nostril spasms. "I have pieces of my
husband's brain!" she cries. "I picked them up with my hands six days
after the crash. Chunks of his skin and internal organs. How is that a
proper investigation? How is that acceptable? How dare they leave pieces
of my husband lying there!"
She pulls out
another storage box filled with personal items from the crash site: $50
in cash; a charred prayer book with a note inside it reading, "I love
you"; a Mickey Mouse dollar bill. Something important is missing,
though. "Why do I have his earpiece? she asks, pulling out the Jawbone
headset of a BlackBerry. "This was in his backpack. And the backpack was
zipped. So where's his phone?"
"He always clips
them next to each other," interjects her 15-year-old daughter, Lauren.
It's an important detail because it suggests that the BlackBerry may
have been intentionally removed from the backpack. On it were hundreds,
if not thousands, of sensitive files and e-mails relating to Karl Rove
and the Bush administration. "I want to know where my husband's phone
is," Connell says angrily. "It's my responsibility as a mother and a
spouse to find out what happened. And I will not accept 'Cause of crash
unknown.' I will not."
Though she is
furious at the NTSB, she has no time for the conspiracy theories. While
she admits that Connell was disillusioned with politics, she bridles at
any suggestion that he could have been involved with vote rigging. "With
Mike there was religion, family, and a love for democracy," she says
firmly. "He would never interfere with the democratic process. That's
just ridiculous."
Connell's younger
sister isn't so sure. "I knew he worked for the Bushes," says
Shannon Connell. The two siblings had diametrically opposed views --
Shannon Connell is a pro-Obama liberal -- but they never allowed this to
come between them. "We stayed close despite the political differences.
He was my brother."
She doesn't know
whether Connell helped steal elections. If he did, she says, it was
because of his passionate anti-abortion views. "I think he was convinced
he was doing good -- to save the babies," she says. "That's the only
thing my sisters and I can come up with.
"Mike had been
deposed, but he hadn't been called as a witness yet," she says of the
possibility that her brother was murdered. "He was incredibly loyal to
the people he worked for, but he would never have lied under oath. For
want of a better expression, I think they played him. His death would
have been a really nice Christmas present for Rove and Cheney.
"I am beyond looking
for justice," she says, resigned. "I just want the truth to be known.
But I am not counting on it." She may be right.
After more than nine
months, the factual report into Connell's crash had still not been made
public. According to an NTSB spokesperson, it was "still being
reviewed." That's scant comfort to Connell's family, who just want some
sense of closure, whatever the outcome.
Still, "In my mind
and my heart," says Shannon Connell, "I am convinced he was murdered."
We may never know
the truth about Connell's last flight, but contracts between Connell's
company, GovTech, and Ken Blackwell's administration establish a
credible scenario for electoral fraud and place Connell at the scene of
the alleged crime.
Among other
things, the contracts contradict Connell's sworn testimony that SMARTech,
in Chattanooga, merely acted as a backup site for election data. The
contracts, signed in March 2004, show that SMARTech was specifically
tasked with creating a "mirrorsite" to manage election night results.
"What this means is that Connell's company was on both sides of the
mirror," explains Stephen Spoonamore. "And that the votes of the people
of Ohio were in the control of a fiercely partisan IT company (SMARTech)
and operating out of another state."
Clouding [?] matters
further is the persistent specter of paranoid conspiracy [?] that has
enveloped the case from the beginning. In September2009, an anonymous
letter was sent to the FBI in Ohio and five other addressees, including
Heather Connell. "Enclosed is a document that is not meant to exist,"
begins the anonymous writer. Included is what purports to be an
"afteraction report" by a black ops agent. All names have been redacted,
but the report provides a detailed time log of actions taken to install
an AMD (microprocessor) in the engine of Connell's plane at College Park
Airfield in D.C. the night before he made his fatal last flight. Connell
himself is not mentioned by name. Just the registration number of his
plane, NP299N, which the agent confirms he had been sent to
"neutralize." The letter accompanying the report is headed MICHAEL
CONNELL. HOMICIDE. It ends with the words: "Connell was not NST
(national security threat)."
While skeptics may
be tempted to dismiss these documents as the ingenious work of a hoaxer
intent on pouring gasoline on the bonfire [?] of conspiracy [] theories
already surrounding Connell, a number of experts from the
intelligence community who have seen the document believe it to be
genuine.
In early November,
the NTSB finally released its factual report into Connell's crash.
The report concludes that tests carried out on the plane's engine,
flight control, and autopilot systems revealed "no anomalies that would
have precluded normal operation."
A spokeswoman for
the NTSB confirmed that the organization had received a copy of the
anonymous letter, but would not say whether its claims were being looked
into. "We're investigating the accident," she says, "not any possible
criminal activity." She adds that the NTSB forwarded the letter to
the FBI in Cleveland. When asked to confirm this, Scott Wilson at the
FBI's Cleveland bureau, says, "The only thing I can say is ... I can't
say anything."
Ultimately, only a
full criminal investigation can determine the truth about Ohio '04 and
the death of Michael Connell. Robert Kennedy Jr., who sought
Connell's cooperation during an investigation into the election,
believes the current administration should pursue the matter. "I think
this is more serious than Watergate," he says. "Watergate was
essentially about winning the battle for public opinion. That's why the
break-in took place -- to gather strategic information about Democratic
strategy and dirt. But the electoral process remained intact. The Ohio
vote undermines the very foundation stone of American democracy. There
should be an official investigation. Otherwise this becomes a blueprint
for how to steal an election from here to eternity."
That may not be
enough for Connell's widow. When I first spoke to her on the phone,
Heather Connell was adamant that her husband's plane crash had been an
accident, God's will. But she is no longer so sure. "This is a messed-up
case of whether Karl Rove threatened my husband or not," she says. I ask
her directly if she now believes her husband could have been murdered.
She takes a deep drag of her cigarette and, choking back tears, says: "I
don't know. 1don't know."
“Republican IT
consultant subpoenaed in case
alleging tampering with 2004
election”
by Larisa
Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
The Raw Story, September 29,
2008
“OH Election
Fraud Attorney Reacts to the
Death of Mike Connell“ by
Brad Friedman
The Brad Blog, December 22, 2008
“Republican IT
Specialist Dies in Plane Crash”
Interviewee: Mark Crispin
Miller
Democracy Now! December 22, 2008
Student
Researchers: Ashleigh Hvinden,
Christine Wilson and Alan Grady
Community Evaluator: Mary Ann
Walker
Sonoma State University
Karl Rove’s
chief IT consultant, Mike
Connell—who was facing subpoena
in connection with 2004
Presidential election fraud in
Ohio—mysteriously died in a
private plane crash in 2008.
Connell was allegedly the
central figure in a longstanding
plot to electronically flip
votes to Republicans.
In July 2008,
Connell was named as a key
witness in the case known as
King Lincoln Bronzeville
Neighborhood Association v.
Blackwell, which was filed
against Ohio Secretary of State
Kenneth J. Blackwell on August
31, 2006 by Columbus attorneys
Clifford Arnebeck and Robert
Fitrakis.
It initially charged Blackwell
with racially discriminatory
practices—including the
selective purging of voters from
the election rolls and the
unequal allocation of voting
machines to various
districts—and asked for measures
to be taken to prevent similar
problems during the November
2006 election.
On October 9,
2006, an amended complaint added
charges of various forms of
ballot rigging as also having
the effect of “depriving the
plaintiffs of their voting
rights, including the right to
have their votes successfully
cast without intimidation,
dilution, cancellation or
reversal by voting machine or
ballot tampering.” A motion to
dismiss the case as moot was
filed following the November
2006 election, but it was
instead stayed to allow for
settlement discussions.
The case took
on fresh momentum in July 2008
when Arnebeck announced that he
was filing to “lift the stay in
the case and proceed with
targeted discovery in order to
help protect the integrity of
the 2008 election.”
The new filing was inspired
in part by the coming forward as
a whistleblower of GOP IT
security expert Stephen
Spoonamore, who said he was
prepared to testify to the
plausibility of electronic
vote-rigging having been carried
out in 2004.
The stay was lifted September
19, 2008 and Connell was served
a subpoena on September 22.
Spoonamore,
a conservative Republican who
works for big banks,
international governments, and
the Secret Service as an expert
in the detection of computer
fraud, found evidence that Karl
Rove, with the help of Mike
Connell and his company GovTech
Solutions, electronically stole
the Ohio 2004 election for Bush.
Spoonamore
testified that the “vote
tabulation system [which Connell
designed] allowed the
introduction of an additional
single computer between computer
A and computer B.” This is
called a “man in the middle”
attack. According to Spoonamore,
“This centralized collection of
all incoming statewide
tabulations would make it easy
for a single operator, or a
preprogrammed ‘force balancing
computer’ to change the results
in any way desired by the team
controlling the Computer C.”
Spoonamore further testified
that the only purpose for such
man in the middle architecture
is to commit crime.
Despite
Connell’s efforts to quash his
subpoena to testify, he was
ordered to appear for a
two-hour, closed-door deposition
on November 3, 2008, just
eighteen hours before the 2008
national election.
Though Connell had expressed
willingness to testify, he was
reticent after receiving threats
from Rove.
Arnebeck presents evidence that
Karl Rove threatened Connell,
cautioning that if Connell
didn’t “take the fall” for
election fraud in Ohio, Connell
would face prosecution for
supposed lobby law violations.
After this threat, Arnebeck sent
letters to the Department of
Justice, as well as messages to
high-ranking members of the
department, seeking protection
for Connell and his family from
attempts to intimidate. Despite
Connell’s elite status as a
top-rung Republican consultant
for years, whose firm New Media
Communications provided IT
services for the Bush-Cheney
2004 campaign, the US Chamber of
Commerce, the Republican
National Committee, and many
Republican candidates and
campaigns, witness protection
requests went unheeded.
Election fraud analyst and
author Mark Crispin Miller notes
that the timing and
circumstances of Connell’s
death—between deposition and
trial—are too suspicious and
convenient for Rove and the Bush
administration, not to merit a
thorough investigation. Arnebeck
and Fitrakis intended to both
further depose and call Connell
to testify as key witness in the
federal conspiracy case. Connell
was also to be questioned about
his key role in the
disappearance of thousands of
White House-RNC email
transactions. These emails are
believed likely to have shed
light on the White House role in
the political firings of US
Attorneys, as well as decisions
to prosecute former Alabama
Democratic Governor Don
Siegelman. Attorneys in the
case said that Connell’s
testimony would likely lead to
the subpoenaing and under-oath
questioning of Karl Rove.
Connell was an
experienced pilot. His plane had
been recently serviced. He had
been in the nation’s capital on
still-unknown business before
his single engine plane crashed
December 22, 2008 on the way
home, just three miles short of
the runway in Akron, Ohio. The
cause of the crash remains
unknown.
Timing of
Connell’s deposition may have
saved the 2008 presidential
elections from electronic theft.
However, Bev Harris at Black
Box Voting notes that man in the
middle systems are still in
place in Illinois, Colorado,
Kentucky, and likely across the
nation.1
Citation:
Bev Harris, “Man in the Middle
Attacks to Subvert the Vote,”
Black Box Voting, November 2008.
Update by
Larisa Alexandrovna
The extreme
vulnerability of electronic
voting systems to systematic
fraud has fallen out of public
awareness because it did not
become a major issue during the
2008 elections, but the problem
has never been resolved or even
seriously examined by any
official body. Questions about
alleged vote count
irregularities in Ohio during
the 2004 election remain the
strongest indication of the
potential for large-scale
tampering with these systems.
The lawsuit, which sought
testimony from GOP information
technology expert Michael
Connell as to any personal
knowledge he might have had of
those irregularities, has
represented the most determined
effort to get at the truth
beyond these allegations.
Michael
Connell testified under subpoena
in November 2008 but died the
following month, when his
single-engine plane crashed as
he was attempting to land at an
Ohio airport near his home.
At the time of his death, the
only mainstream news outlet to
even mention Connell’s death and
the controversies surrounding
his involvement in electronic
voting was a single CBS/AP
story. However, there appears to
have been no direct response in
the mainstream press to the
articles on Connell published by
Raw Story. In fact, a deafening
silence on his alleged
relationship with the Bush White
House has prevailed, even after
his sudden and tragic death in
December of 2008.
An
organization that has taken a
pro-active role in making public
both the case of King Lincoln
and the various articles on it
is Velvet Revolution. See
http://velvetrevolution.us/.
Update by Brad
Friedman
Little of note
has changed since the death of
Mike Connell as this book goes
to press. The National
Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) is still investigating,
but is likely not to release a
final report until mid to late
2010. They released a
preliminary report, however,
indicating decreasing visibility
at the Akron airport, with
visibility still at 2.5 miles at
the time of the crash and
temperatures just above
freezing. According to the NTSB
report, and confirmed via
transcripts and tapes received
via FOIA requests, Connell
radioed to ask “whether there
were any reports of icing, to
which air traffic control [ATC]
responded that there were no
reports.”
The tapes and
transcripts indicate that
something suddenly happened up
there, as his last words to ATC,
recorded on tape, were a
declaration of emergency
followed quickly by “Oh, fuck,”
before he was not heard from
again.
Curiously, for
a man as well connected to the
very top echelons of the
Republican Party as Connell was,
no GOP officials, or George W.
Bush, or John McCain, or Karl
Rove, to my knowledge, ever
issued a public statement upon
his tragic death.
For the time
being, the Ohio voting rights
case has been stalled since
Connell’s death. Cliff Arnebeck
continues to investigate how he
plans to move forward, and is
considering broader subpoenas in
hopes of taking depositions
from, among others, Karl Rove,
as he widens the scope of his
conspiracy case.