Karl Rove's IT Guru Dies In Small Plane Crash

A dozen readers have submitted the story of the death in a plane crash of Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT adviser, the man who set up and ran the gwb43.com mail server, and an important figure in GOP tech circles since 1997. The closest thing to straight reporting to be found in a mainstream media outlet is a piece from KDKA in Pittsburgh giving a detailed backgrounder on Connell's work for Rove, two generations of the Bush family, and many GOP congressmen and committees. CBSNews.com is now mirroring the KDKA reporting. Almost all the early media coverage comes from the left and some of it is frankly conspiratorial. Among the milder pieces (although it could not be called balanced) is this interview with Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of two books about the 2004 election in Ohio. Connell was compelled to testify on the day before the US election in a lawsuit involving Ohio election irregularities in 2004. Connell, an experienced pilot, died on Sunday when his plane crashed two miles short of the runway of Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio.

Comments

Re:Accident?

[erroneus]

Yes, and a guy associated with the billion-dollar ponzi scheme also committed suicide... or, well... he was found with his wrists cut and had bled to death... the cause and nature of death has yet to be determined precisely.

As the Republican dynasty comes to an end, I think we will see more of this. Not to say that Democrats are clean and clear -- there were a number of "interesting deaths" surrounding the Clintons as well. I believe there is a lot of ugly truth associated with the rule of the U.S.A... we will never ever know the truth. Depresses me sometimes.

Re:Accident?

[VValdo]

Does anyone really think this was an accident?

Not to go all Paul Wellstone on everyone, but rawstory is reporting that "45-year-old Republican operative and experienced pilot had been warned not to fly his plane in the days before the crash."

"Connell...was apparently told by a close friend not to fly his plane because his plane might be sabotaged," Renault said. "And twice in the last two months Connell, who is an experienced pilot, cancelled two flights because of suspicious problems with his plane."

From PRNewsWire:

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell's life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR's attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell's not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

Alternet reports the following exchange on Amy Goodman's program Democracy Now:

Amy Goodman: Velvet Revolution, a non-profit investigating Connell's activities, revealed this weekend that Connell had recently said he was afraid George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus." Cliff Arnebeck had also previously alerted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to alleged threats from Karl Rove to Connell if he refused to "take the fall." Well, Mark Crispin Miller joins us now, a professor of media culture and communication at New York University

[snip]

Marc Crispin Miller: Well, I cannot assert with perfect confidence that this was no accident, but I will say that the circumstances are so suspicious and so convenient for Rove and the White House that I think we're obliged to investigate this thing very, very thoroughly. And that means, first of all, taking a close look at some of the stories that were immediately circulated to account for what happened, that it was bad weather. That was the line they used when Wellstone's plane went down. There had been bad weather, but it had passed two hours before. And this comes from a woman at the airport information desk in Akron. We're told that his plane was running out of gas, which is a little bit odd for a highly experienced pilot like Connell, but apparently, when the plane went down, there was an explosion, a fireball that actually charred and pocked some of the house fronts in the neighborhood. People can go online and see the footage that news crews took. But beyond the, you know, dubiousness of the official story, we have to take a close look at -- and a serious look at all the charges that Connell was set to make.

AG: Now, he had asked the Attorney General Mukasey for protective custody, because of threats to him and his wife?

MCM: He reported threats to his lawyer, Cliff Arnebeck, and Arnebeck -- also, Velvet Revolution heard from tipsters, as well, tipsters who also claimed that Connell's life was at risk. Stephen Spoonamore, the whistleblower who was the first -- who was the one to name Connell in the first place, also had an ear to the inside. He's also very connected. And all these people were

Re:Accident?

[gbulmash]

Not everything has to be a conspiracy. Aircraft do crash.

I'm glad somebody is being reasonable here.

Yes, but when there's someone on them who has information that could expose a lot of fraud by powerful people, you have to entertain the possibility that it wasn't merely coincidence that this particular person died.

Airplanes crash, people have heart attacks, and good samaritans really do pick up hitchhiking transvetite prostitutes out of the goodness of their hearts. Doesn't mean that the version of the story you're told is how it really happened.

Re:Accident?

[Bourbonium]

RTFA. His friends were warning him that his plane could be sabotaged, and he'd already cancelled some flights for fear that this might happen. He DID know too much, and had access to the missing emails that Rove desparately wanted to remain lost forever. And Connell is likely one of the only IT staff with the knowledge and ability to recover that mailstore. Not saying that this couldn't possibly be an accident, just that it's pretty damned suspicious, that's all.

Another interesting point - geography of the area

[Weaselmancer]

I live near Akron Canton airport. This happened maybe 15 miles from my house.

Most of the land around Akron and North Canton is farmland. There is a sizable Amish and Mennonite population in that area. It's a lot of cleared land and cornfields around AC.

If you were to run out of gas on approach there are dozens of places to set down a single engine airplane. It's mostly cornfields.

That was the part that first struck me about this story. If you knew you wouldn't make the airport...you'd have to be pretty damn unlucky to not find a decent place to set down. With any luck you might even manage an old county access road and salvage the plane.

Connell knew of some danger.

[lenski]

When I talked with Cliff and Bob the day after the first deposition a few months ago, they reported that Mike Connell tried to avoid answering their questions.

They were looking forward to subsequent depositions in order to get better information.

We all had similar observations about Connell's situation: It seemed very very dangerous to him, and we were concerned for his safety. We were hoping to get better information more quickly in order to limit the amount of time during which Mr. Connell would be under threat.

This plane crash comes as no surprise to any of us.

Living in Columbus, we in the election protection community have witnessed several activities firsthand that give us pause.

We have, for instance, photographic records of some of the punchcard ballots in the 2004 election, before they were destroyed in direct violation of a court order as well as the orders of the new secretary of state.

Re:Accident?

[hairyfeet]

As someone who lives in Ar I can tell you that "arkancide" is something we seem to have every couple of years. Of course pulling that is quite easy when he have state medical examiners like the one we had in the 90's that were willing to testify that a guy who was shot,stabbed,choked,had his genitals mutilated,and finally thrown off a bridge committed suicide, or my personal favorite, a couple of teens that went hunting in the most corrupt county in AR(and I am guessing stumbled upon something they weren't supposed to see) who supposed died of "marijuana intoxication" by passing out conveniently side by side on a train track. Of course they said the train engineer must have been "hallucinating" when he said that the boys not only didn't move despite the train shaking the tracks and the horn blaring, but that the boys were covered in a bloody police tarp BEFORE they were hit.

So while I personally thought Clinton was a great president and didn't give a shit if he screwed college babes on the white house lawn as long as he kept the economy rolling, trying to blame him for a few "arkancides" when he have so much police corruption here is kinda unlikely. The cops here have a hell of a lot more to hide than old Slick Willie did and are a hell of a lot nastier when they feel threatened. So if someone pulled an "arkancide" while Clinton was prez I'd have to cast my suspicion on the ones that still pull that trick,the cops.

And as for this guy, is it really so hard to believe someone would shut up the snitch? Hell if I had 1/20th of the money this guy was dealing with and you were threatening to snitch me out I wouldn't have any problem jury rigging your plane. Is it so hard to believe that someone with potentially 100s of millions wouldn't do the same? While I am not saying he was hit, I would be looking hard at that crash and especially at anyone who had access to it before the flight. Because I just can't picture a pilot with that much flight experience making such a rookie mistake as running out of gas. I know a light pilot and have hung out with him and his friends and if anything they go the other way and figure in too much fuel, figuring it is always better to have fuel left over than come up short.

where's the killswitch server?

[spasm]

If he knew he was sitting on secrets; knew (or suspected) people were out to get him; and was a geek:

Where's the killswitch server? You know, the server sitting quietly somewhere that needs you to login once a week or so or it automatically dumps all that incriminating material onto a website and emails a few news outlets.