O'Rourke called a $1 million donation from pipeline executive Kelcy Warren to Gov. Abbott 'pretty close to a bribe' on the campaign trail.
when the Democratic gubernatorial candidate compared the donations to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to bribery, a state appeals court ruled.The Third Court of Appeals in Austin dismissed Kelcy Warren's defamation suit, agreeing with O'Rourke that his use of terms like “bribery” and “corruption” to describe the pipeline executive's donations to Abbott are consistent with the sharp language used in political campaigns, and are protected speech.
On the campaign trail, O’Rourke regularly blasted Abbott for accepting a $1 million contribution from Warren, chairman of the board at the gas pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners, after the Texas power grid failure during the storm. O'Rourke told voters he believed it was “pretty close to a bribe" and said he was trying to “connect the dots” for people so they see how Abbott received generous donations from companies that profited on the winter storms.
But the appeals court ruled that O'Rourke's statements were were premised on factual information about Warren's campaign donation and on his repeated assertion that Abbott had not done enough enough to fix the electrical grid.
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