{"id":6765,"date":"2008-12-19T23:27:44","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T07:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=6765"},"modified":"2008-12-22T16:46:34","modified_gmt":"2008-12-23T00:46:34","slug":"breaking-mike-connell-gop-it-guru-reportedly-killed-in-solo-plane-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=6765","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: MIKE CONNELL, GOP ‘IT GURU’, KILLED IN SOLO PLANE CRASH"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest blogged by Emily Levy of Velvet Revolution<\/a>
\n[Additional material added on 12\/20\/08 by Brad Friedman]<\/em><\/p>\n

The Akron Beacon Journal<\/em> is reporting<\/a> that the private plane of the GOP’s highly-placed “IT guru” Mike Connell’s went down in Lake Township, Ohio on Friday evening. Connell was killed in the crash and is reported to have been the only person on board. There are no reports of anyone on the ground being hurt, though his plane crashed in a residential neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Connell is a familiar name to readers of The BRAD BLOG<\/a> as a key witness in the King-Lincoln v. Blackwell<\/em> lawsuit regarding fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio. That recently revived<\/a>, long-standing lawsuit led to Connell’s recent deposition<\/a> on November 3, 2008, the day before this year’s general election. According to plaintiff’s lead attorney Cliff Arnebeck in July, a tipster had warned that Connell had been threatened by Karl Rove, as The BRAD BLOG reported at the time<\/a>, in an attempt to intimidate him into “taking the fall” for Ohio election fraud not long after a motion was filed to lift the stay in that case.<\/p>\n

Connell had been memorably described as a “high IQ Forrest Gump”, by the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Ohio fraud case, for his apparent penchant at the scene of “every single crime” from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 to the network firewall on a number of key Congressional committees to the case of the missing White House emails. (Video and text transcript of the interview with the attorneys here<\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

In late September, the federal judge in the Ohio case agreed to lift the stay<\/a>, and in late October he compelled Connell to give a deposition<\/a> to plaintiff attorneys on the Monday before the Tuesday general election.<\/p>\n

Connell had been served with a subpoena to appear in the federal courtroom in Ohio at the same College Park, MD airport where his single engine plane reportedly took off from last night, on his final solo flight…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The following clip (appx 6:45 mins<\/i>) from the documentary film, FREE FOR ALL!<\/i><\/a>, released just prior to the motion to lift the stay on the King-Lincoln<\/i> case in order to compel the testimony of Connell and others, including possibly Rove, offers some background on how Connell and his companies fit into the bigger picture of the investigation into potential crimes masterminded Rove, the GOP and the White House…<\/p>\n

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Much more background on Mike Connell is available in these recent stories by The BRAD BLOG<\/a>:<\/i><\/p>\n