By James Thompson

 

According to Project Vote Smart, T. Boone Pickens is Greg Abbott’s 10th highest political campaign contributor. He contributed $110,000. Pickens is well-known to many people.

 

Wikipedia describes Pickens as follows:

 

Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr. (born May 22, 1928), known as T. Boone Pickens, is an American business magnate and financier. Pickens chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator and corporate raider during the 1980s. As of September 2013, Pickens has a net worth of $950 million.

 

Wikipedia discusses Pickens involvement Swift Veterans Sandal:

On November 6, 2007, Pickens offered a million dollars to anyone able to dispute any claims made in political ads by the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth (SVPT), a group he had supported during the 2004 presidential election. John Kerry, whose military record and anti-war activism during Vietnam was the target of the group’s book and media campaign, sent Pickens a letter on November 16, 2007, accepting the challenge, requesting that Pickens donate the money to the Paralyzed Veterans of America should he succeed in disproving any of the SVPT claims. In response to Kerry’s acceptance of the challenge, Pickens issued a letter the same day, narrowing the original challenge to the SVPT ads, and requiring Kerry to provide his Vietnam journal, all of his military records, specifically those covering the years after his active duty service, and copies of all movies and tapes made during his service. Pickens’ letter also challenged Kerry to agree to donate $1 million to the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation, if Kerry “cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue.” Kerry later accused Pickens of “parsing and backtracking” on his initial offer and wrote that “I am prepared to prove the lie and marshal all the evidence, the question is whether you are prepared to fulfill your obligation.”

On June 22, 2008, a group of Vietnam veterans who previously served with and now work with Kerry accepted the challenge and sent a 12-page letter — with a 42-page attachment of military records to support their case — to rebut several of the accusations of the Swift boat group. Pickens has responded with a message stating “In reviewing your material, none of the information you provide speaks specifically to the issues contained in the ads,” he wrote, “and, as a result, does not qualify for the $1 million.”

Wikipedia also notes:

“In 1949, Pickens married Lynn O’Brien. They had four children together; Deborah Stovall, Michael O. Pickens, Thomas B. Pickens III, and Pam Pickens. Pickens divorced Lynn in 1971.

In April 1972, Pickens married Beatrice “Bea” Carr Stuart and adopted one of her daughters, Elizabeth “Liz” Cordia. They had no children together.

In November 2000, Pickens married Nelda Cain. They divorced in November 2004. They had no children together.

In 2005, Pickens married Madeleine Paulson who had been married to the founder of Gulfstream Aerospace, Allen E. Paulson, for two years. Pickens and Madeleine lived in Preston Hollow, Dallas and owned a ranch along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. They amicably divorced in 2012 and had no children together.

It was reported on December 4, 2013 that Pickens’ public relations representative told an NBC 5 affiliate reporter that he proposed to Toni Chapman Brinker, widow of restaurateur Norman Brinker, at his ranch in Pampa. The couple married on February 14, 2014.

Pickens has four biological children and one adopted daughter. As of 2007[update], Pickens had twelve grandchildren. In 2007, Pickens’ son Michael O. Pickens of Nocona, Texas was sentenced to probation for a penny stock trading scheme and entered drug rehabilitation afterward, emerging in March 2008. In October 2012, Michael, then 58 years old, began blogging under the title “5 Days In Connecticut.” In the blog, he made a number of allegations about his family, including that his drug addiction stemmed from physical and sexual abuse by his father, T. Boone Pickens. He also claimed his siblings stole from their mother and were addicted to drugs; and that his father sabotaged a family member’s business. Pickens and three of his children — Elizabeth Cordia, Pamela Pickens and Thomas B. Pickens III — subsequently filed a lawsuit against Michael. They alleged libel, invasion of privacy and extortion via cyberbullying and cyberstalking. The plaintiffs said the blog was part of an effort to extort $20 million from Pickens. In January 2013, Pickens’ 21-year-old grandson Thomas “Ty” Boone Pickens IV died from a heroin overdose. Ty, the son of Thomas B. Pickens III, was a student at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

In July 2009, Pickens was the subject of controversy after he had a construction crew go to his grandmother’s former home, that was now owned by someone else, in Holdenville, Oklahoma and remove a slab of driveway concrete that he had signed as a child. The current owner of the home asserted ownership, and the slab was returned. In February 2010, a judge ruled that the slab belonged to the current homeowner.

Pickens owns a ranch in Roberts County, Texas that has three pipelines that cross his property.

Pickens owns a Gulfstream 550 jet that he uses to fly to Stillwater for OSU games from his private airport near Pampa, Texas.”

Texas voters should consider this notorious contributor to Greg Abbott before casting their ballot in November.