Gov. Abbott mega-donor Kelcy Warren sues Democrat Beto O'Rourke for defamation

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Kelcy is trying to silence Beto. Kelcy is using TRG and a Russin oligarch;s law frim

Link to tweet

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Gov-Abbott-mega-donor-Kelcy-Warren-sues-Democrat-16984193.php

The chairman of the board of directors of one of the nation’s biggest pipeline companies, who is also a major donor to Gov. Greg Abbott, is suing Democrat Beto O’Rourke for defamation, slander, and libel for criticizing his company’s actions in the 2021 Texas winter storm and referring to his subsequent $1 million donation to Abbott as “pretty close to a bribe.”

Kelcy Warren, chairman of the board at the gas pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners, filed suit against O’Rourke in San Saba County seeking more than $1 million in damages. The lawsuit alleges that O’Rourke is trying to “publicly humiliate Warren and discourage others from contributing to Gov. Abbott’s campaign.”.....

Warren’s attorneys include other O’Rourke statements in the lawsuit, along with videos of him recounting stories of Texans who died during the storm while giant companies made profits.

Link to tweet

.....The grid failures are a key issue for O’Rourke as he tries to make the case that Abbott should be fired as the leader of state government. In campaign ads and speeches, O’Rourke has faulted Abbott for not acting sooner to protect the grid despite years of warnings. And he’s blasted Abbott for not doing enough to make sure last year’s crisis is not repeated.

[SheltieLover]

1. Kicking for visibility

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Texas Is Still Not Recognizing The Full Death Toll Of Last Year's Devastating Winter Storm

This is from an email that I got today from the Lone Star Project

While Texans were freezing and hundreds dying during Winter Storm Uri, Governor Greg Abbott directed power prices to stay at the maximum possible rate for several days, recent court proceedings revealed.

Abbott’s order led to billions in profits for natural gas companies and billions in higher energy bills for everyday Texans. The fallout means that most Texans will be paying an average of $45 more per month for decades to come.

The Denial
The shocking revelation — that it was Abbott himself who ordered the higher power prices — raises even more questions about the circumstances that led to him receiving millions of dollars in contributions from the natural gas industry just a few months after Texans experienced nearly $293 billion in damages and more than 750 deaths.

Abbott denied being “involved in any way” in the decision to keep prices at the maximum but then refused to release emails and text messages related to communications that occurred during the storm.

]
Here is the article cited https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/texas-winter-storm-death-toll

On New Year’s Eve, with few people watching, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced that 246 people died in the February 2021 winter storm that took down much of the state’s power grid. The new figure is 36 higher than the state’s previous count but is still almost certainly wrong.

According to an analysis of “excess deaths” in the week of the power outages by BuzzFeed News, the true number is likely more than 750.

“Independent reports suggest this is a gross undercount and that over 700 died,” tweeted Beto O’Rourke on Tuesday in a reference to our investigation. O’Rourke is a former Democratic member of Congress from El Paso who is now running to be Texas governor.

[gratuitous]

2. Not sure what Warren's claim is

Is Kelcy upset that he made so much money? Or that he contributed so much to Abbott's campaign? Or that the power grid failed in Texas? Or that people died when it happened? Because those are all matters of indisputable fact. If Warren is touchy about having these dots connected, whose fault is that?

Frivolous lawsuit designed to distract O'Rourke from his campaign and waste money from his campaign funds.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Sounds to me like good advertisement for Beto

“I’m being sued for calling out the people that gouged the fuck out of you while some of you froze to death”

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Here is a link to the pleadings in this lawsuit-kelcy is represented by lawyer for TFG and Russian

Link to tweet

Here is an interesting article on this law firm https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trumps-lawyer-in-russia-probe-has-clients-with-kremlin-ties/2017/06/09/5dba9518-4d4a-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html

The hard-charging New York lawyer President Trump chose to represent him in the Russia investigation has prominent clients with ties to the Kremlin, a striking pick for a president trying to escape the persistent cloud that has trailed his administration.

Marc E. Kasowitz’s clients include Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin and has done business with Trump’s former campaign manager. Kasowitz also represents Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, U.S. court records show.

Kasowitz has represented one of Deripaska’s companies for years in a civil lawsuit in New York and was scheduled to argue on the company’s behalf May 25, two days after news broke that Trump had hired him, court records show. A different lawyer in Kasowitz’s firm showed up in court instead, avoiding a scenario that would have highlighted Kasowitz’s extensive work for high-profile Russian clients

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[ProudMNDemocrat]

5. Dirty Tricks 101...Sue your opponent for telling the TRUTH...

Gregg Abbot must be getting desperate.

Scum!

[Pantagruel]

7. Beto gets discovery too

He should immediately demand to see every piece of communication betwixt Abbott and his staff and the plaintiff and his staff.

[Caliman73]

8. See you in discovery!!

Trying to intimidate Beto... the response is "Sure, we can go to court. It will be nice to get hands on internal memos showing the company failing to "winterize" equipment. That is afterall, the right of Beto, for his defense against the idea that he "falsely and maliciously" said things to damage the plaintiff's reputation.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

9. Imagine being the CEO of a publicly traded company with huge government contracts and involvement

Then claiming you are a private person

Yeah, he’s the same guy behind the Dakota Access pipeline. They are suing a bunch of critics over that too.


No wonder trump and his minions want to re-work the First Amendment in the Supreme Court to get their way

[MustBeTheBooz]

10. 1 million in donations!?

I thought private citizens were capped at $1200 or some such! Oh yeah, CU and reasons…
Good luck in court, Kelcy.

[dlilafae]

11. I hope Beto proves his case,

and beats the pants off of Warren, exposing the corruptness in Texas politics.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. A Billionaire Is Suing Beto, What Comes Next?

This lawsuit is really sad. The lawyer who filed this lawsuit is the Kasowitz firm that is not known for First Amendment issues but is known for representing TFG and Russian Oligarch. The Houston office of this firm is mainly employment litigators

To win this lawsuit, Kelcy needs to prove that Beto made a statement of fact that Beto knew was false. The complained statements are statement of opinions, and you can sue for this

Link to tweet

On Monday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke made headlines when he announced at a campaign event that a billionaire was going to file a lawsuit against him. Sure enough, a defamation lawsuit against O’Rourke was filed in San Saba County later that day.

The man bringing the lawsuit against O’Rourke is Kelcy Warren, the co-founder and current Chairman of the Board of Directors at Energy Transfer Partners, one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world. His lawsuit is seeking damages against O’Rourke for defamation, slander, and libel.....

“There have to be very clear misstatements of fact, if there are merely opinions, generally speaking, they are not going to be actionable as defamation,” said Shavin. The standard of the law applies even further to a public official, according to Shavin. “It’s not enough just to prove it’s false or defamatory, it’s got to be proven that it was made with actual malice.”....

Shavin pointed to a Texas case to describe the very high bar for meeting defamation: Carr v. Brasher. In that case, the Texas Supreme Court denied rehearing a case from Lynn Brasher, the former mayor of South Houston, against his election opponent (and new mayor) Al Thiel and Walter Carr, a campaign aide who authored campaign brochures. Brasher alleged that Carr committed libel for some of those campaign brochures for an election in 1985. Some of the allegations raised in those brochures included “payoffs” Brasher made to bookkeepers. The defense for Thiel and Carr rested on the absence of “malice” in the accusation.

This lawsuit will be fun to watch