Conspiracy theory to debunk: GOP IT guru Michael Connell was murdered to keep him from telling information about how he and Karl Rove stole the 2004 Ohio presidential election and deleted incriminating E-mails from the White House E-mail account. The murderers sabotaged Connell's plane. The murderers wanted the murder to look like an accident.

Debunking:

In the original version of the story, there were threats from Karl Rove against Connell to make him take the rap for stealing the 2004 Ohio election. The problem with that idea was that there never was any evidence that Connell did anything wrong. There wasn't even proof that the election was stolen in the first place. All the suit that named Connell as a witness had was a theory about how Connell MIGHT have stolen the election. Experts who reviewed the claims found it was unlikely that Connell could have stolen the election in the manner theorized. The experts said they needed more information to make a conclusion.

Since the suit that subpoenaed Connell had so little merit, it makes no sense that Connell, let alone Karl Rove would be threatened by it. The original threat story from the conspiracy theory said Connell was supposed to take the rap for stealing the 2004 Ohio election. But if Connell would have taken the rap, he would have had to have admitted that the 2004 election was stolen in the first place. A revelation like that would probably lead to people in the White House going to prison. So why admit to something like that when there is no evidence against you? Why threaten somebody when that could make them expose everyone?

Another problem with the original version of the threat story was that it claimed if Connell did not take the rap, his wife would be arrested for lobby law violations. As far as I can find, his wife isn't even a lobbyist. A recent article describes her as a stay at home mother of four who was listed on Connell's businesses but played no role in them.

Where did the story that Connell was threatened first come from? In court documents, plaintiff's lawyer Arnebeck says the witness is anonymous and they came across him after the suit got wide spead notice in the "blogosphere." So he's probably just some guy on the Internet. We all know how trustworthy anonymous people on the Internet are. In some places, the source is described as a higher up in the McCain campaign. How many high level McCain staffers follow left wing conspiracy blogs? Supposedly, the same source also told the lawyers that the 2008 election was going to be stolen too. Arnebeck used that to get his case back out of suspension, but dropped it just before the election where the claim would have been proven false.

So Connell goes ahead on November 3 and testifies he knows nothing. Why then was there was any reason for Rove to threaten Connell?

The story and the details have changed now from the fist version. But it all is still coming from people who will not substantiate their claims or name their witness.