Thread by @AceBearstrom

🧵1/The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has spent most of the past five months trying to link “the Biden family” (but not Biden himself) to millions of dollars proffered by foreign business interests before Biden became president.

But wait ...

#TrumpFamilySaudis

🧵2/It is, therefore, safe to assume that the committee’s interest would be piqued if it learned that the Democratic front-runner for his party’s nomination was actively receiving unspecified amounts of money from a foreign business — one linked closely to a foreign leader.

🧵3/The Oversight Committee would no doubt launch hearings if it heard that the Democratic front-runner was actively promoting that foreign business, much less a shared business venture between the candidate and the foreign entity.

🧵4/But all of that is true of Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, so no hearings should be expected.

🧵5/Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) invested $2 billion in a fund run by Jared Kushner soon after Trump left the White House.

🧵6/This weekend, the golf course that Trump owns in Virginia — his regular destination for rounds of golf while he was president — is hosting a tournament organized by LIV Golf.

🧵7/LIV Golf, essentially a series of tournaments involving a well-paid coterie of golfers, is also primarily funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

🧵8/Mohammed, you will recall, was identified by U.S. intelligence officials as having approved the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

The LIV is very popular with Donald Trump.

🧵9/U.S. District Judge Susan van Keulen wrote — “[The Saudi Public Investment Fund] is the moving force behind the founding, funding, oversight and operation of LIV.”

🧵10/The organization began hosting events last year. The third was hosted at Trump’s club in New Jersey, where he participated in a pro-am round to help promote it.

🧵11/He did so despite outcry from the families of people killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (“I don’t know much about the 9/11 families,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal.)

🧵12/Last year’s LIV season culminated in an event hosted at Trump’s course in Miami. This season, Trump properties will host three LIV events. In other words, five of LIV’s 22 events in 2022 and 2023 will be held at venues in the Trump business portfolio.

🧵13/How much is that worth to Trump's company and to himself? It’s important to recognize that cash is the central value proposition LIV offers, poaching PGA players primarily through massive contracts and big purses.

🧵14/It’s hard to imagine that LIV isn’t paying millions of dollars to use Trump’s facilities, as is generally how such deals go down, plus income from souvenirs and other spending.

🧵15/The Kushner Saudi billions and the Trump probably highly lucrative relationship with Saudi Arabia, even as Trump seeks a second term as president, just blends into the background, as Republicans direct public attention to "the Biden family."

washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…