Democrat subpoenas Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund over LIV Golf-PGA Tour

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) subpoenaed a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) on Wednesday over the controversial deal between the PGA Tour and PIF-backed LIV Golf.

“Over the past three months, PIF and its Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan have repeatedly declined to voluntarily cooperate with the Subcommittee’s investigation. The information requested is necessary for the Subcommittee to understand the extent of and reasons for PIF’s extensive U.S. investments,” the senator wrote in a memo to the Senate investigations subcommittee that he chairs.

The memo states that Blumenthal subpoenaed PIF’s United States subsidiary, USSA International LLC, on Wednesday, asking for documents and information. In the letter sent to the subsidiary, the senator is asking for all records relating to PIF’s investments in the U.S., all records relating to the pending agreement and other information about the fund’s assets in the U.S.

The subsidiary has until Oct. 13 to produce the information and documents.

Blumenthal said in the memo that he issued the subpoena because PIF’s investment in PGA Tours is a part of its “drastic expansion” in the U.S., there is “inadequate visibility” into Saudi Arabia’s U.S. investments and PIF has refused to cooperate with the subcommittee.

The announcement of the subpoena comes as the investigations subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on concerns over the pending deal. Blumenthal has repeatedly asked Al-Rumayyan to testify before the committee since June, when the two golf giants announced their agreement.

The two golf entities have until the end of the year to finalize the deal, which has sparked widespread criticism about the scope of the PIF and LIV Golf’s influence in the U.S.

The subcommittee had its first hearing in connection with the deal in July, where PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne were grilled by the panel members.

“Today’s hearing is about much more than the game of golf,” Blumenthal said during his opening remarks in July. “It’s about how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence — indeed even take over a cherished American institution — to cleanse its public image.”