Republican Tech ‘Guru’ and Key Witness In Ohio Election Fraud Case Killed In Suspicious Crash

Mike Connell, subpoenaed to testify in 2004 Ohio election case, had been threatened by Karl Rove

SEE UPDATE – GO HERE.

Late last Friday, December 19th, Republican tech “guru” Mike Connell was killed in a private plane crash in Lake Township, Ohio. He was reportedly the only one on board, and no one on the ground was injured when it went down in a residential neighborhood, so reports the Akron Beacon Journal .

Mike Connell

Best known as the well-connected GOP computer operative who had been at the center of every Republican scandal over the past 8 years, Mike Connell was a key witness in the King-Lincoln v. Blackwell lawsuit regarding fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio.  That suit, recently revived, had led to Connell’s recent deposition on November 3, 2008, the day before the Presidential election.

An investigative reporter, who had been working on the Ohio election fraud case, was using Connell as a confidential source.  He had confided in her that he had been threatened, and that he and his wife, Heather – also a source – took the threats seriously.  There’s another allegation that Connell has also been threatened by Karl Rove in efforts to force Connell to take the fall for election fraud in Ohio. [ See The BRAD BLOG ]

Journalist Larisa Alexandrovna thinks that Connell had important information that he wanted to share:

You see, Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all “known” Karl Rove accounts.

In addition, I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman. This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.

Alexandrovna believes there should be a careful investigation of the crash, although she is not saying she believes there has been foul play, neither is she saying she thoroughly believes it was accidental.

What I am saying, however, is that these possible relationships cannot and should not be overlooked by investigators. There are far too many serious and reasonable questions that must be answered for the public.

I have been to Mr. Connell’s home. Mr. Connell has confided that he was being threatened, something that his attorneys also told the judge in the Ohio election fraud case. When I met with Heather, his wife, I did so carefully because of the threats he was getting.

There a number blogs watching this, including the Brad Blog, which reported last July that Karl Rove had threatened Mike Connell to take the fall for Ohio.

Karl Rove has threatened a GOP high-tech guru and his wife, if he does not “‘take the fall’ for election fraud in Ohio,” according to a letter sent this morning to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, by Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck.

The email, posted in full below, details threats against Mike Connell of the Republican firm New Media Communications, which describes itself on its website as “a powerhouse in the field of Republican website development and Internet services” and having “played a strategic role in helping the GOP expand its technological supremacy.”

Connell was described in a recent interview with the plaintiff’s attorneys in Ohio as a “high IQ Forrest Gump” for his appearance “at the scene of every [GOP] crime” from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 to the RNC email system to the installation of the currently-used Congressional computer network firewall.

Connell and his firm are currently employed by the John McCain campaign, as well as the RNC and other Republican and so-called “faith-based” organizations.

In his email to Mukasey today, Arnebeck writes:

“We have been confidentially informed by a source we believe to be credible that Karl Rove has threatened Michael Connell, a principal witness we have identified in our King Lincoln case in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, that if he does not agree to ‘take the fall’ for election fraud in Ohio, his wife Heather will be prosecuted for supposed lobby law violations.”

“This appears to be in response to our designation of Rove as the principal perpetrator in the Ohio Corrupt Practices Act/RICO claim with respect to which we issued document hold notices last Thursday to you and to the US Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform,” the Ohio attorney writes, before going on to link to The BRAD BLOG’s coverage of his press conference last week and requesting “protection for Mr. Connell and his family from this reported attempt to intimidate a witness.”

There’s also this uncanny “coincidence” : Mike Connell is the 9th person who has been involved in elections and voting machines to die over the last 6 years, especially those in Ohio and Georgia. Check this report out. Where does all of this leave us?

With a lot of unanswered questions.