{"id":1364843,"date":"2022-03-08T13:07:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1364843"},"modified":"2022-03-08T13:07:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T18:07:15","slug":"nolte-texas-oil-man-sues-beto-orourke-for-defamation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nolte-texas-oil-man-sues-beto-orourke-for-defamation\/","title":{"rendered":"Nolte: Texas Oil Man Sues Beto O&#039;Rourke for Defamation"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnolte-texas-oil-man-sues-beto-orourke-for-defamation%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1364843&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Robert Francis O\u2019Rourke, the Democrat candidate running to replace sitting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, is facing a <a href=\"https:\/\/interactive.wfaa.com\/pdfs\/warrenvorourke.pdf\">defamation suit<\/a> from Kelcy Warren, a Texas oil billionaire.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Rourke, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishcentral.com\/news\/politics\/irish-roots-beto-o-rourke\">Irishman<\/a> who calls himself \u201cBeto\u201d in the hopes of fooling people into believing he\u2019s Hispanic, is currently losing to Abbott in every single poll by an average of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/2022\/governor\/tx\/texas-governor-abbott-vs-orourke-7376.html\">nine points<\/a>. According to the lawsuit, \u201cO\u2019Rourke, a failed politician who lost both his 2018 race for U.S. Senate and his 2020 race for the Presidency,\u201d has sought to gain traction in the campaign by smearing Warren as someone who\u2026<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u2026\u201cbroke the law\u201d and committed felonies \u2014 extortion, bribery, and corruption \u2014 when he purportedly \u201cbought [] off\u201d Governor Abbott \u201cnot to fix\u201d the power grid in Texas so that Energy Transfer supposedly could make money in the event the grid failed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>When the lawsuit mentions \u201cthe grid,\u201d it\u2019s referring to the state\u2019s electric grid and the terrible power outage parts of Texas faced when the grid went down after the state was hit with an unexpected winter storm in February of 2021. According to the suit, the Irishman O\u2019Rourke said Warren\u2019s energy company, Energy Transfer Partners, made $2.4 billion off the grid failure and then rewarded Abbott with a $1 million campaign donation as a payoff for not having fixed the grid.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit reads:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>On February 4, 2022, Defendant O\u2019Rourke again stated that Warren and others engaged in \u201ccorruption\u201d in a tweet with which he posted a video of himself explicitly stating that \u201cthey broke the law\u201d and \u201cpaid off Greg Abbott[.]\u201d In another tweet later that day, Defendant O\u2019Rourke stated that \u201c[e]nergy executives robbed us while Texans froze to death\u201d and \u201cAbbott let it happen because they gave him a cut.\u201d<\/p>\n[\u2026]\n<p>The next day, February 6, 2022, Defendant O\u2019Rourke tweeted that \u201c[g]as corporations made $11 billion by robbing Texans as they literally froze to death in their own homes,\u201d and in a video he posted of himself accompanying the tweet, he stated that if he becomes governor, he will \u201cseek justice from those who defrauded the people of this state.\u201d Later that day, Defendant O\u2019Rourke tweeted that \u201cAbbott got paid off not to fix the grid\u201d and in a video of himself accompanying the tweet made the same claim.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The suit says the Irishman O\u2019Rourke is pledging to prosecute Warren and others if he becomes governor:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Defendant O\u2019Rourke stated that \u201c[t]his was no Act of God or Mother Nature,\u201d and instead blamed that tragic story and hundreds of lost lives on Governor Abbott and \u201chis donors in the gas industry.\u201d In the video, Defendant O\u2019Rourke also said \u201c[l]et\u2019s make sure there is justice, and consequences, for those who broke the law[.]\u201d The same day, a local news outlet in San Antonio reported that Defendant O\u2019Rourke accused Plaintiff Warren of bribing Governor Abbott.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/article\/news\/politics\/inside-politics\/texas-oil-billionaire-kelcy-warren-sues-gubernatorial-nominee-beto-orourke-for-defamation-slander-libel-february-2021-winter-storm\/287-b3f28833-4a62-4cd4-ac3e-cd0ae2e649e8\">response<\/a> to the suit, the Irishman O\u2019Rourke is not claiming he didn\u2019t say these things. Instead, he said Warren is hoping to silence him from telling the truth:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cNot only did he make windfall profits of the death, misery and struggle of our fellow Texans, he\u2019s now trying to shut us down in the courts,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said Tuesday afternoon in Dallas. \u201cHe\u2019s trying to shut us down in the courts through a frivolous lawsuit. And I wanted to make sure you heard that here directly from me here first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Abbott campaign says it has nothing to do with the suit.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas media are all excited for the Irishman O\u2019Rourke. They think the publicity <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/article\/news\/politics\/inside-politics\/texas-oil-billionaire-kelcy-warren-sues-gubernatorial-nominee-beto-orourke-for-defamation-slander-libel-february-2021-winter-storm\/287-b3f28833-4a62-4cd4-ac3e-cd0ae2e649e8\">will lift<\/a> his \u201cunderdog\u201d campaign:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Politically, any activity relating to last year\u2019s power grid failure could help O\u2019Rourke keep attention on the issue, as he has aimed to do for month\u2019s heading into the primaries.<\/p>\n<p>Now, O\u2019Rourke said his campaign would be paying for his legal defense, and he expressed confidence that his team\u2019s efforts there would succeed.<\/p>\n<p>Potentially even more revealing, though, is what could come out of discovery from a lawsuit about this topic \u2014 providing the lawsuit ever advances to that point \u2014 as it could be used to bring communications between Warren and state leaders about last year\u2019s storm to public light.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Defamation lawsuits can be tricky. One issue could be whether the court finds Warren is a public figure, in which case the Supreme Court has held that the plaintiff must prove \u201cactual malice\u201d instead of mere negligence to result in a verdict of defamation. Another is that Irishman O\u2019Rourke may claim he was engaging in \u201crhetorical hyperbole\u201d instead of making factual accusations. But falsely accusing someone of a crime is what is called defamation per se, where the client does not even need to prove financial damages. So if the court rejects those arguments, Irishman O\u2019Rourke could be in serious trouble unless his lawyers can prove through what comes out in court that this businessman was literally involved in criminal activity (of which there is currently no evidence).<\/p>\n<p>But if the\u00a0claims in the lawsuit are\u00a0accurate and the Irishman O\u2019Rourke did indeed accuse Warren of bribing Abbott not to fix the power grid and related crimes of extortion and corrupt influence,\u00a0that\u2019s a helluva thing to say. And I\u2019m not sure it looks good for O\u2019Rourke to be running around accusing people of Bond-villain level crimes like this. Desperation is never a good look, and he\u2019s basically accusing Warren and Abbott of being sociopaths.<\/p>\n<p>The case is\u00a0<em>Warren v. O\u2019Rourke, #10,204 in the District Court of San Saba County, Texas.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Follow John Nolte on Twitter <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NolteNC\"><strong><em>@NolteNC<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong>. <em>Follow his Facebook Page <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JohnNolteNC\/?skip_nax_wizard=true\"><strong><em>here<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Francis O\u2019Rourke, the Democrat candidate running to replace sitting Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, is facing a defamation suit from Kelcy Warren, a Texas oil billionaire. O\u2019Rourke, an Irishman who<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1364843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1364843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1364843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1364843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1364843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}