GOP Computer Guru Controls Key Congressional Websites

In 2001, Michael L. Connell of GovTech Solutions, L.L.C., a notoriously partisan GOP operative and Bush family confidant, was selected to re-organize the Capitol Hill IT network.

Under the guise of selecting a female-owned IT company (Connell's wife Heather is listed as the owner), former Ohio Republican Congressman and convicted felon Bob Ney reportedly arranged for Connell to be the man behind the firewall for the U.S. House of Representatives. Connell's role and activities need to be investigated by putting Connell under oath and examining how arguably one of the country's most zealously partisan IT specialists managed to land the contract and be allowed access to this electronic communication system.

Initially, Connell's forays into partisan politics had very public ups and downs. Connell got his big break in 1987 as a staff member for former CIA Director and Vice President George H.W. Bush's successful campaign for president. He programmed and developed an advanced delegate tracking system for Republican National Convention in 1988. With no presidential campaign in 1990, Connell emerged in partisan politics, this time in a well-publicized scandal. On November 11, 1990, Senator Dan Coats, R-Ind., fired Connell for his role in a "push polling" scheme that Coats denounced as "clearly unethical." Next, Connell resurfaced as a congressional staffer and mouthpiece as U.S. Rep. Martin R. Hoke's, R-Ohio, Communication Director in 1993-94.

In 1996 election year, Connell resumed his partisan campaign IT activity. His newly formed New Media Communications began providing design makeovers and software for Republican candidates and organizations in Ohio and Illinois. Public records reflect that he specifically worked on implementing databases and web services for John Bohner's, R-Ohio, Freedom Project PAC, John Kasich's, R-Ohio, Pioneer PAC, and Dick Arney's, R-Texas, Majority Leaders Fund. Also during this period he did computer work for right-wing ideologue David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the website FrontPageMag.com.

Tom Brazatis of the Cleveland Plain Dealer described Connell as "an Internet consultant in 1998 for the winning campaigns of Republican Governors Bob Taft in Ohio and Jeb Bush in Florida." The article stated that Connell told the Plain Dealer that he had been hired to do "special internet projects" for George W. Bush. "Connell declined to be more specific," noted the Plain Dealer's 2000 article.

After Jeb Bush won the governor's office, Connell received various Florida IT contracts from the governor's office, Florida Department of Education and Community Affairs, and did computer work for the Florida Republican Party. A few months after Bush's 1998 Florida victory, New Media Communications merged with GOP lobbyist and operative Thomas J. Synhorst and formed DCI/New Media L.L.C. in Richfield, Ohio. Synhorst is listed as a co-founder of GovTech. Connell designed Jeb.org, JebWear.com, and GOPWear.com during that election cycle.

"I'm loyal to my friends and I'm loyal to the Bush family·" read a Connell quote in Inside Business magazine, November 2, 1999.

Crain's Cleveland Business reported when Connell created GovTech Solutions in 2001 he told them he had "decided to roll out a separate company for its political work because government and corporations are Å’two animals different enough to have it make sense.'" Connell told Crain's that his "GovTech Solutions is the only private-sector company to gain permission from HIR [House Information Resources] to place its servers behind the firewall"

One has to wonder about the implications of the premier partisan campaign IT man, steadfastly loyal to the country's most well-known security-industrial complex and CIA family, serving as the man behind the U.S. Congress' firewall.