Trump and the Saudis: Is Jack Smith finally looking at this clear-cut corruption?

Trump's links to the Saudi regime and its LIV Golf tour reek of obvious corruption. Maybe Jack Smith has noticed

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, Columnist, PUBLISHED MAY 26, 2023 9:50AM (EDT)

There's a lot of Trump legal news these days, what with the E. Jean Carroll verdict, the Manhattan hush money indictment, the news that Fulton County, Georgia, D.A. Fani Willis has put local authorities on notice to anticipate "something" coming in August, and a cascade of reporting on special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, with some suggestions evidence that will come to a conclusion very soon.

The possible Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump himself remains more obscure, but with the sentencing of Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in prison for plotting the insurrection on Thursday, it's hard to see how Trump, who incited the riot, isn't equally implicated in what happened that day. But for some reason one obvious case has gotten very little media attention and, as far as we know, very little attention from investigators: Trump's cozy financial relationship with the Saudi-sponsored Public Investment Fund, the desert kingdom's massive sovereign wealth fund. (Its assets are estimated at more than $620 billion.)

It's not at all surprising that the Republican House isn't looking into this. They're busy trying to find disappearing informants in the Hunter Biden laptop case and digging through the Biden family finances. Why the Democratic-led Senate hasn't bothered is another question. But it's obvious that Trump and his family are deeply financially involved with the Saudi government, and considering the fact that Trump is running for president yet again, it's shocking that nobody seems to care.

While all the other GOP presidential candidates were busy campaigning on Thursday, USA Today reported that Trump was kicking back at Trump National Golf Course in Virginia, which will soon host a tournament on the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour — the third at a property owned by the former president just this year. (Two more will be scheduled at Trump properties in New Jersey and Florida.) Last year, Trump — in typically obtuse style — even scheduled a tournament at the New Jersey club on Sept. 11, drawing outrage from the families of 9/11 victims. Trump said he didn't know what they were talking about and defended Saudi Arabia, telling ESPN that "nobody has gotten to the bottom of 9/11."

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It's unclear how much money has actually changed hands, but Trump admits that he's been paid a fee, which he calls "peanuts," by the sponsoring Public Investment Fund, the same Saudi government entity that "invested" in Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's business to the tune of $2 billion just a couple of months after he left the White House. (That's a deal that makes Hunter Biden's alleged transgressions look like kids gambling for nickels in the lunchroom.) These tournaments generally bring in millions to the clubs that host them so those are some pretty big peanuts.

According to USA Today, a reporter asked Trump whether his resorts have gotten these tournaments because of his favorable policies toward Saudi Arabia as president. He flippantly replied, "Not at all." Apparently, his defense of the Saudi government's assassination and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi wasn't significant. They just love him, and his golf courses.

Trump extolled the virtues of the LIV Golf tour (a rival to the long-dominant PGA), telling reporters, "They have unlimited money, and they love it. And it's been great publicity for Saudi Arabia. They've been great for golf. The Saudis have been fantastic for golf. And ... inside their country, they're going to do some great courses." Indeed, he has signed at least one development deal to license a golf and hotel complex in the Gulf state of Oman, financed by a Saudi firm.

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LIV Golf is a key part of the Saudi regime's program of "sportswashing," meaning as a nation's attempt to use massive investment in sports to cover up for its human rights abuses. (The Saudi fund also took control of the English soccer club Newcastle United in a controversial 2021 deal.) Even aside from the Khashoggi atrocity, many of those horrors happened during Trump's term, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took control of the ruling family by force, rounding up more than 400 members of the Saudi elite and torturing them.


Trump, as you may recall, was very impressed.


"It's like a revolution in a very positive way," he said. That's the kind of support from a U.S. ...

Criminal defendant Trump will spend the rest of his life in court or prison.

Laugh till you cry wrote on Jun 14^th, 2023 at 1:38pm:


So after he was President? Oh Noes.

Laugh till you cry wrote on Jun 14^th, 2023 at 2:55pm:


Ah. Assumptions.

Bobby. wrote on Jun 14^th, 2023 at 2:18pm:



You just want to suck ol' orange F A T T Y dick.