PGA Tour-Saudi deal’s congressional listening to potential timetable, revealed

Any course of involving the federal authorities often takes months, typically years, to finish.

But, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the chair of the Everlasting Subcommittee of Investigations (PSI), famous on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that congressional hearings discussing the PGA Tour’s take care of the Saudi Public Funding Fund (PIF) might occur “inside weeks.”

“The Saudis have been very express that they’ve a strategic goal right here,” Blumenthal stated Sunday, per Golf Digest. “They’ve been engaged in quite a few malign actions antithetical to American pursuits and values, killing [Washington Post reporter] Jamal Khashoggi, in addition to different journalists, torturing and imprisoning dissidents and critics and supporting anti-democratic actions, even terrorist actions, like 9/11, in addition to the inner battle in Yemen.”

Blumenthal additionally worries in regards to the Saudis taking on “this American establishment.” He hopes the PSI, the Senate Overseas Relations Committee, and the Division of Justice (DOJ) “get to the underside” of this deal.

Photograph by Rob Carr/Getty Photos

On Jun. 12, Blumenthal penned a letter to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan discussing this deal. Inside that letter, Blumenthal raised a number of issues.

“PGA Tour’s settlement with PIF relating to LIV Golf raises issues in regards to the Saudi authorities’s function in influencing this effort and the dangers posed by a overseas authorities entity assuming management over a cherished American establishment,” Blumenthal wrote. “PIF has introduced that it intends to make use of investments in sports activities to additional the Saudi authorities’s strategic goals.”

Blumenthal additionally mandated that Monahan and the tour present all communication and documentation associated to this deal by Jun. 26, the Monday after the Vacationers Championship.

Many unknowns about this deal stay, however with the federal authorities now concerned, the deal might get blocked, as Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee inferred final week.

Regardless, extra data might emerge inside the coming weeks.