Rove's Dead IT Guru Was Saving Unborn Babies
Mike Connell, the suddenly-dead star witness in an Ohio 2004 election lawsuit which suggests that election was stolen from John Kerry, justified his electronic vote-stealing for his bosses as saving the lives of unborn children. LISTEN TO THIS AUDIO of an interview (four minutes) on Air America of Steven Spoonamore, the Republican IT expert who blew the whistle on Rove and Connell. Connell, hired by Rove as Rove's chief IT wizard, saw his work for the Republican Party as necessary to strengthen anti-abortion forces. Connell was a Christian fundamentalist who after Obama's victory wrote:
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"In our 230 year history, our democracy has suffered worse fates. It's just that none come to mind right now....This is just a moment in time and this too shall pass. Enduring is the fact that 2000 years ago, a babe was born in Bethlehem. When our Lord God sent his only Son for our salvation,...In spite of the current economic and political conditions, salvation is eternal."
On November 3rd, before his death in a small plane crash this week, Connell had stonewalled at the behest of attorneys asigned to him by the Republican Party, in the Ohio vote-tampering lawsuit King Lincoln v. Blackwell. Cliff Arnebeck said afterward: "Connell has just ensured that he is Exhibit A of the soon-to-be-filed RICO lawsuit against Karl Rove et al."
Connell's stonewalling that day was expected. Ohio Federal Judge Solomon Oliver had just ordered him to testify a day ealier, just before the 2008 election. Judge Solomon's order, made after Connell's attorneys motioned to have his subpoena quashed, was widely interpreted as a message to Rove and GOP operatives that they would be working under extreme scrutiny the next day, election day, so if they were thinking of tampering the election, "Don't."
Spoonamore, who to this day supports the invasion of Iraq and calls the first Iraq election "glorious," says unequivocally in the Hartmann interview that he believes Ohio's critical 20 electoral votes in 2004 were "stolen."
Harriet Crosby of Velvet Revolution writes:
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in the late hours of election night in 2004--at 11:13 p.m.,
to be precise--when Blackwell shunted the vote tally from Ohio to GOP servers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they were changed just enough to give the election to Bush. We have evidence, from the Ohio Secretary of State's Office, of the election architecture that shows exactly when the vote tally was sent to SMARTech at GOP headquarters in Tennessee, and when it came back. This is how Bush got a second term--and Karl Rove was behind it. Rove will be the next (after Connell) to be subpoenaed in our Ohio lawsuit.
As Rove's IT guru, Connell was also responsible for building and maintaining the White House's email servers, and was the end of the line in a number of investigations into mysteriously disappearing White House emails, including those relating to the investigation of the vice president's office in the case of Valerie Plame. Spoonamore says that in an Ocotber 2006 meeting with Connell, Connell asked questions about how to "permanently destroy hard drives." Spoonamore told Connell, "If this is what I think you're talking about, this meeting is over."
As the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Ohio lawsuit, Arnebeck, wrote a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking for some form of protection for star witness Connell and his family when it emerged that Connell had been threatened, and warned by Rove to "take the fall." A copy of the letter was forwarded to Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich, as well as to 60 Minutes, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and C-Span. The letter stated:
[quote]Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:50:55 EDT
Subject: Report of Rove threats against witness Michael Connell
Dear Attorney General Mukasey: 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 fallâ€