Senate subpoenas Saudi’s $700bn sovereign wealth fund over US dealings

Saudi Arabia’s $700bn sovereign wealth fund – which has been used as a lever of global influence by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – has been subpoenaed by a powerful Senate committee after it refused to voluntarily comply with information requests about its US dealings. The subpoena was announced on Wednesday at a committee hearing led by its chairman, the Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. On its face, the hearing was meant to focus on Saudi’s controversial proposed golf merger. “Saudi Arabia’s use of foreign of sovereign wealth fund resources to attempt to gain influence in the United States should provoke us all. He also suggested that he believed Blumenthal had “higher goals” in pursuing an investigation into Saudi’s PIF.