Beto Will Fight For The Right To Call A Pipeline Billionaire A Crook

Beto’s Free Speech Comeback? After Loss In Texas Governor’s Race, O’Rourke Will Fight For The Right To Call A Pipeline Billionaire A Crook





Texas energy billionaire Kelcy Warren sued O’Rourke for defamation in February in a case that pits a powerful energy billionaire against a high-profile politician.

Former El Paso Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke lost his 2018 bid for the U.S. Senate to Ted Cruz. His 2020 presidential bid didn’t gain traction. On this Election Day, he succumbed in a 55% to 44% wipeout to Texas’ incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott.


What’s next for O’Rourke? A court date as a defendant in a potentially high-profile lawsuit.

O’Rourke, 50, is fighting a defamation suit brought by oil and gas pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren, founder and executive chairman of Dallas-based Energy TransferET, in early 2022. O’Rourke said some pretty nasty things about Warren while on the campaign trail. The worst: accusing him of bribing Governor Abbott with $1 million as part of a conspiracy to sabotage the Texas power grid so Warren’s company could profit by gouging customers with high-priced emergency supplies of natural gas. As O’Rourke repeated the attacks on his February “Keep The Lights On” campaign tour across Texas, Warren repeatedly demanded O’Rourke retract his statements and not repeat them.

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