Middle East Eye reports:

A Washington-based human rights group is calling on the US government to investigate the business dealings between the Saudi Arabia-financed LIV Golf tour and former US President Donald Trump, who hosted a series of LIV golf tournaments at his resorts last year.

The demand for a probe into the business dealings comes after it was stated in a court hearing last week that the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) owns 93 percent of LIV and pays all of the costs associated with its events.

While LIV had already disclosed that the PIF was its majority shareholder, the court hearing – in which LIV Golf and several professional golfers are suing the PGA Tour – was the first to mention the full extent of the investment fund’s ownership.

The claim was made during the hearing by the lead counsel to the PGA Tour, according to Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn).

Middle East Eye reached out to LIV Golf and the Trump Organization for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

“The revelation that a fund controlled by Crown Prince MBS actually owns almost all of LIV Golf means that MBS has been paying Donald Trump unknown millions for the past two years, via their mutual corporate covers,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Dawn’s executive director, said in a statement.

“The national security implications of payments from a grotesquely abusive foreign dictator to a president of the United States who provided extraordinary favors to him are as dangerous as they are shocking.” [Continue reading…]