Opinion The Senate has some good questions — and few answers — about Saudi-owned golf. (WaPo)

By 4-1 vote in May 2021, our prodigal St. Johns County Board of Commissioners pledged nearly $17 million to the PGA TOUR, INC., an unprecedented 25-year "incentive," a taxpayer subsidy, latest of several for PGA TOUR.  In 2017, it approved another $2.8 million in "incentives"

On that occasion, and on others whenever fraud, waste, abuse, misfeasance and nonfeasance occurred in St. Johns County, I walked to the podium, exposed and opposed their flummery, dupery and nincompoopery.  Watch the video.  

Naturally, under the malignant, narcotic maladministration of County Administrator HUNTER SINCLAIR CONRAD, our Dull Republican County Commissioners rubber-stamped the deal, 4-1.  

Sick twists.  

Now, with the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund's acquisition of PGA, TOUR, INC., it's time to question the bone saw murderers and their investment in PGA TOUR, INC., backed with an extravagant 25-year term (Commissioner Jeb Smith dissenting).

Editorial from The Washington Post: 

Opinion 

 The Senate has some good questions — and few answers — about Saudi-owned golf

By the Editorial Board

|

July 30, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Former president Donald Trump talks with Yasir Al-Rumayyan at Trump National Golf Club on May 26 in Sterling, Va. (Alex Brandon/AP) 

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Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, cited “scheduling conflicts” in declining to appear this month at a Senate hearing. His lawyers indicated he would cooperate in other ways — but he has not, despite repeated information requests. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, on Thursday publicly invited Mr. Al-Rumayyan to pick any day in September to testify. Mr. Blumenthal is not holding his breath.

The subject Mr. Al-Rumayyan seems to be avoiding is the fund’s bid to control professional golf, via a partnership between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf organization. The pact raises questions not only about “sportswashing” to distract from state human rights atrocities, but also about the degree to which the Saudis are using their oil profits from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to control more elements of American culture. Mr. Blumenthal and his colleagues should persist in posing these questions.

The senator wants to hear directly from Mr. Al-Rumayyan about what role he intends to play in American golf and how that dovetails with the fund’s larger investment goals in the United States. Mr. Blumenthal is also asking for a list of all U.S. assets currently held by the Saudi fund; all U.S.-based contractors, consultants, public relations firms, strategic consultants, crisis consultants, lobbyists and law firms that have done work for the fund; and any records relating to Project Wedge, the code name for what became LIV Golf.

That project was as political as it was economic, growing out of an effort to improve Saudi Arabia’s reputation following the 2018 state-sponsored assassination of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi by a squad of agents who flew to Istanbul, where Khashoggi was located, with a bone saw aboard two private jets owned by Mr. Al-Rumayyan’s fund.

Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3 billion on sports deals since 2021, according to the Guardian, more than the gross domestic product of Barbados or Montenegro. The fund bought the Newcastle United soccer team for $391 million, and a Saudi soccer team signed Cristiano Ronaldo for $200 million a year. This doesn’t include Aramco’s Formula One sponsorships or significant Saudi investments in video game makers, including Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts, or Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster.

LIV Golf has showered largesse on U.S. politicians willing to associate themselves with the organization. It will hold its final event of this season in October, offering a $50 million purse, at former president Donald Trump’s Doral course in Florida. The Greenbrier resort owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R), a U.S. Senate candidate, will host a LIV Golf tournament in August.

of the code used by chambers of commerce. Major League Baseball gave up this designation in 2007, and the National Football League gave it up in 2015. Mr. Wyden’s bill would exclude sports organizations from claiming the nonprofit status if the value of their assets exceeds $500 million.

Current law also exempts sovereign wealth funds from a 30 percent withholding tax on payments such as dividends and interest. The Saudis can use this to maximize tax-free profits from the PGA Tour deal. Mr. Wyden’s legislation would deny the withholding benefit to countries with more than $100 billion invested globally, unless they have a free-trade agreement or a tax treaty with the United States and aren’t deemed countries of concern by the State Department. The measure is written in a way to target Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as Russia and China.

In other words, there is ample reason for Congress to consider the policy implications of Saudi Arabia’s dealings, as well as the moral ones, and for Senate investigators to continue pursuing the apparently permanently indisposed Mr. Al-Rumayyan.

Meanwhile, in the latest reminder of President Biden’s failure to keep his campaign promise to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan visited the country on Thursday to meet with the crown prince. Fortunately, members of Congress are pushing back harder against Saudi influence.

The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

Members of the Editorial Board and areas of focus: Opinion Editor David Shipley;Deputy Opinion Editor Karen Tumulty; Associate Opinion Editor Stephen Stromberg(national politics and policy); Lee Hockstader (European affairs, based in Paris); David E. Hoffman (global public health); James Hohmann (domestic policy and electoral politics, including the White House, Congress and governors); Charles Lane (foreign affairs, national security, international economics); Heather Long (economics); Associate Editor Ruth Marcus; Mili Mitra (public policy solutions and audience development); Keith B. Richburg (foreign affairs); and Molly Roberts (technology and society).