White House Emails: The Missing Link?

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate whether former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other Administration officials should face criminal charges in the firing of nine US attorneys. The launch of this investigation follows a 358-page report citing a lack of cooperation by senior White House officials and the Justice Department in Congress' inquiry into the US prosecutor purge.

A critical link to the Justice Department and White House's involvement in the firings lies in the missing White House emails, which have reportedly been purged from White House servers.

Although several administration officials, including Gonzales have testified before the Judiciary Committee, there is one person, yet to be interviewed, who may hold the keys to the missing emails -- Bush IT expert Mike Connell. Most people have never heard of Mike Connell. But that's no surprise as the very nature of his job keeps him behind the scenes. Connell is the architect and cyber keymaster of George W. Bush election websites including GeorgeWBush.com and GWB43.com, the site Karl Rove used for 95-percent of his email communication. Connell is also the CEO of Govtech Solutions, the company responsible for building and managing congressional email servers and firewalls.

According to SourceWatch, Connell also developed websites for the House Intelligence, Judiciary, Financial Services, Ways and Means, and Administration Committees.

For obvious reasons, this would appear to be a conflict of interest since Connell has a history of building partisan websites including RNC.org, anti-Kerry website swiftboatvetsfortruth.org and former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth J Blackwell's election websites, to name a few. Connell currently heads up IT for the McCain campaign.

Like former Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell who in 2004 penned a letter stating he was committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President," Mike Connell told Inside Business magazine in 1999, "I'm loyal to my friends and I'm loyal to the Bush family."

An October 11, 2006 meeting between Connell, GovTech Solutions President Randy Cole (who is now running for State Representative in Ohio) and Cybrinth CEO Stephen Spoonamore, raises more than a few questions regarding Connell's loyalty to the Bushes. At the time, Spoonamore, a leading cyber security expert, was considering a project with Connell. During this meeting, Spoonamore indicated that Connell asked him about ways to "permanently destroy hard drives." Spoonamore said, "If this is what I think you're talking about, this meeting is over."

Spoonamore provided the following notes from his meeting, which was confirmed by a source close to the situation.

On Oct 11, 2006: 14:30-16:00 Mike Connell and others from his firm(s) met with me and others from my firm at the Cybrinth LLC offices to discuss three things:

1 - Some overseas IT incidents that effected clients both of us service in a negative manner. Nothing to do with White House that I know of.

2 - Cybrinth's ongoing work in data destruction to protect communications from latency intercepts. This was something of keen interest to them, and Cybrinth has better working knowledge of this area than they did at that time. We were, and are, working on this issue for several elite clients.

3 - GovTech's needs to upgrade email and communication system security with several clients. Mike specifically stated this included some systems impacting the White House email. I don't know if these were .gov domains or off-the-books domains.

Spoonamore says while he doesn't know whether Connell had a role in the White House email purge, he's a vital to uncovering the truth about the missing communications. Spoonamore adds, Connell has knowledge of where the emails were routed and where they may be recovered because he built and maintained the system.

"Mike is much more of a partisan than I am... and has been involved, certainly in building the front ends, the website application ends of many of the same people that I would have concerns about and would like to talk to."

While the last time the two met was nearly two years ago, Spoonamore and Connell's paths continue to cross in unexpected ways. Spoonamore, a life-long Republican, is currently serving as a star witness in a lawsuit charging the GOP with rerouting Ohio 2004 election headquarter tabulators to SmartTech servers in Chatanooga, Tennessee before releasing them to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's office. The lawsuit maintains that Karl Rove, with the assistance of Mike Connell, architected and directed a strategy to manipulate elections through the use of computers.

Although this all sounds like fodder for conspiracy theorists, it should be noted that SmartTech servers also run the GeorgeWBush.com and GWB43.com websites and email systems.

Spoonamore links GovTech and SmartTech in the following email dated June 12, 2007:

"There is no difference between GovTech and SmartTech.

Randy Cole and his wife, siblings and a few friends own a rainbow of companies, all privately held, and constantly changing names.

He has two long time guys who I know, who also run his A-List operations.

Mike Connell (Plans the Operations)

Michael Gaines (IT lead architect on many projects)

All of his companies do the following things almost interchangably:

GOP Campaign Work (Bush00, Bush Transition Team, Bush04, 40+ GOP Congress runs, 25+ GOP Senate runs etc)

GOP Computer Support for GOP operations (some of it nasty)

Anti-Abortion Groups Computers (He does them for free for the Tax Write Off via sponsor churches)

Radical Christian Fascists Church Computers (Again for Free for the Tax Write offs)

Government Agency Contracts (Including several committees on the House and Senate side from 01-06)

GOP Mass Mailing/Phone Bank computers

These are all companies controlled by Randy Cole, either openly, or via direct family/political ties.

SmartTech

SmartTech Solutions

New Media Communications

New Media Solutions

GovTech Solutions (I know this one built a lot of systems on the Hill)

Government Technology Systems

Government Technology Solutions (Also had/has Hill contracts)

Technomania

TechnoSmarts

GOP-Technology

CampaignTech

SmartTouch Technologies

Christian Computer Services

New Life Technologies

The Message Technologies

He also has some phone bank companies, but I have never dug into that nest of issues.

They even tried to hire Cybrinth last year to increase the security for some of their 'more sensitive' clients. Among those they included the RNC, but not the Hill."

Connell has been subpoenaed and ordered to produce documents related to the case. He responded by hiring three high-powered GOP-connected attorneys, including Bill Todd, former counsel to Bush/Cheney '04. Connell's attorneys filed a motion to quash the subpoena and an affidavit stating that his information is confidential. Ohio Attorney Cliff Arnebeck is attempting to secure a court order to enforce the subpoena, convinced Connell's has vital information about SmartTech and the 2004 election.

I contacted Connell on several occasions to ask him about his meeting with Spoonamore, the White House emails and the lawsuit, but did not receive a response.

Perhaps Nora Dannehy will have better luck.

 

Comments

[tompoe]

The most exciting aspect of this lies with our voting machines. For years we have been subjected to the nonsense that the electronic system remains until someone proves undetectable manipulation has occurred. Well, looks like we have undetectable manipulation about to be coughed up in return for prosecutorial deals by IT boys right there in the Bush white house. Nice.

[Yermammy]

Good show Becky! I'm so tired of the fluff. You're really getting to the heart of the matter. Keep it up and thanks a million. Actually thanks 350 million (American citizens)! Maybe we can nail Rove, Bush and the rest of the varmints soon.

[WalterDellaw]

This is superb journalism, and the most important story I have read about the Bush administration in the past 12 months. In a sense, it is the spark that ought to ignite a bonfire that will not only illuminate all the darkness that has shrouded our government over the past 8 years, but hopefully burn out the corruption that has been hiding under that shroud. Ms. Abraham, I thank you.

[Yermammy]

That's the adjective I should have used- superb! She is a serious journalist. Sounds like another smart and energetic person that would be of great service to President Obama.

[TXfemmom]

They hired a partisan operative to do all this IT work? Talk about conflict of interests. On the other hand, Bush goes out in January and no one will be there to protect Mikey.

A long time in prison can change someone's outlook on things, especially when no pardon is in sight for eight years. Some responsibility and some accountability has to happen over what has happened in the last eight, or we would be doomed to see them repeated.

Mikey would be a good first choice. Every web site or computer the hack has touched must be gone over with a fine toothed comb and CHANGED.

[PT6]

Like Alaska did with Palin in having the Supreme Court in protecting all of the Governor's e-mails.

Congress should seek to have all Bush, Cheney, and company's communications preserved including letters, emails, proposals, legal documents, presentations, video, audio, telephone calls, faxes, and other forms of communication.

This will prove necessary in figuring out what went so vary wrong!

[larmarch5]

Look for the missing emails to appear after Obama wins the election. Even a low level civil service IT person would know how to create back-up tapes and hide them. There are many civil servants who will come forward with all kinds of information after it is safe for them to blow the whistles. I would like to see Bush erased as a legitimate president, denied his pension and replaced as simply asterisks. I'd also like to see him jailed for his crimes.

[Chicagowill]

Well said. It would have had to have been a very sophisticated system that would require several keys to unlock an encrypted backup. I doubt these people were that devious.

I suspect backup CD's see the light of day some time in 2009. Either that or the twenty first century Deep Throat will leak them to some reporter who sees a Pulitzer for breaking this story.

[benali]

Engaging a partisan political IT provider to support Executive branch IT systems is a clear conflict of interest. That this same IT provider was also engaged to support Congressional systems violates the Constitutional separation of powers. Federal IT contracts should be civil service, not part of a partisan spoils system.

Any garden-variety IT systems administrator would routinely retain all emails due to the federal "Sarbox" reporting requirements imposed on all comanies. These emails could only be "lost" (ie, purposely destroyed) by intent of the system administrator at management direction.

Mr. Connell's decision to hire three "high-powered GOP attorneys" to represent him is well-placed. This person is in a lot of serious legal trouble -- assuming proper investigation is pursued. Will it be?

Corruption like this is why I, a Republican, am voting Democratic this election. The behavior to which this article alludes directly undercuts the very basis of our political system and the Constitution itself. I'd rather have Mr. Obama -- a person I disagree with on many issues -- win the Presidency, than have the continued destruction of our cherished political system.

Why doesn't the MSM focus on these egregious violations of our political system? Why isn't this a campaign issue for the two presidential candidates? Am I the only Republican who believes we should follow the Constitution and the law?

[danno50]

benali said:
"Am I the only Republican who believes we should follow the Constitution and the law?"

I certainly hope not.

[paulita]

Here Here! Spoken like a "Real American!"

[arrogantsob]

I see a grand jury convening on this one. The first of many I hope.

[proudem]

This needs to make mainstream media. It could happen again and again.

[TheIndependenceParty]

The Connells need to be subpoeaned by the Congress in both legislative houses, and the next DOJ needs to investigate everything this man and his wife did in business over the last ten years.

There is well-founded concern that there was interference in the counting of votes in 2000 and 2004 in the Presidential elections.

Connell has considerable expertise in computer science, ... and as a Republican Partisan, could shed some light, IMHO, on why the counts were so difficult and so suspect as compared with ATM transactions, for example.

Oh yes. The Connells need to be held accountable.

[HockeyMom]

So the chances are slim to none??