PGA HEADING TO THE HILL: The PGA Tour said today that it will agree to appear before a Senate subcommittee in July to testify about its mega deal with Saudi-funded LIV Golf. — Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the subcommittee’s ranking member, announced plans this morning to haul executives from PGA, LIV and the Saudi Public Investment Fund before their panel on July 11, Katherine Tully-McManus and I report, an invite the PGA Tour said in a statement it looks forward to accepting. — The hearing will probe “the future of the PIF-funded LIV Golf, the risks associated with a foreign government's investment in American cultural institutions, and the implications of this planned agreement on professional golf in the United States going forward,” lawmakers wrote in their invite to testify, which comes on the heels of Blumenthal’s previous request for records about how the deal came together and how it will be structured, as well as a separate tax probe from Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). — The hearing will be the latest chance for the Tour to defend its about-face on doing business with its one-time rival and correct what a person briefed on PGA’s agreement with LIV told PI is a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the deal says. — The deal includes “safeguards” to ensure PGA controls the new entity, regardless of what PIF invests and PIF’s governor serving as the entity’s board chair, according to the person briefed, who said PGA will also have the right under the arrangement to refuse any investment by the Saudi wealth fund, though PIF will have a right of first refusal on any outside investments. — The framework stipulates that the deal will move the commercial assets of the PGA Tour, LIV and Europe’s DP World Tour — such as media and broadcasting deals and ownership of golf courses — under the new entity, which is still being called NewCo. — The Tour, meanwhile, will continue to “have full decision making authority with respect to all strategic and operational matters” such as the rules and sanctioning of events and “inside the ropes” operations at those events, according to the person briefed. While negotiations over the structure of the new entity remain ongoing, and will still need approval, the framework is serving as a basis for those discussions, the person said. ANOTHER SHAKE UP AT PHRMA: “Anne Esposito is stepping down as the top lobbyist at PhRMA, the drugmakers’ most powerful industry group,” our Megan Wilson reports, in what amounts to the latest shakeup in the prominent drug lobby in the months since suffering a major defeat by failing to block new drug pricing provisions from being signed into law. — Esposito oversaw the group’s federal lobbying shop as senior vice president of federal advocacy since January 2020, and a spokesperson for PhRMA told Megan she will remain with the association this summer while leaders conduct a search for her replacement. — In an email obtained by POLITICO, Esposito attributed her departure to “a multitude of personal and professional reasons” and the need to “find a better balance.” She added: “I will always be proud of the work we’ve done over the past years, even if every outcome wasn’t what we wanted.” — Democrat Mike Woody, who rejoined PhRMA last year, will serve as interim head of the shop once Esposito leaves. Megan notes that Esposito’s resignation “is the latest shakeup at PhRMA, which has seen the departures of three member companies — AbbVie, Teva and AstraZeneca — in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act, which compelled Medicare to negotiate the cost of some high-cost drugs into law.” SPEAKING OF: PhRMA became the latest in the industry to challenge that law, Megan reports, alleging in a lawsuit against the Biden administration that the drug pricing program is unconstitutional. The trade group joined with Global Colon Cancer Association, a patient group, and the National Infusion Center Association, an Austin, Texas-based provider group, arguing that the program violates the Fifth and Eighth amendments of the Constitution. — “It is a government mandate disguised as negotiation,” the complaint — the fourth so far, following similar legal challenges from Merck, the Chamber, and Bristol Myers Squibb — contends. ANOTHER SCOTUS BOMBSHELL: ProPublica’s Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski have the latest on another ethically questionable trip by a Supreme Court justice and wealthy political donor. They report that Justice Samuel Alito didn’t report a 2008 fishing trip to Alaska on the private jet of hedge fund executive and GOP donor Paul Singer, in an apparent breach of the law determining such disclosures. — “In the years that followed, Singer’s hedge fund came before the court at least 10 times in cases where his role was often covered by the legal press and mainstream media. In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion.” — Conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo “attended and helped organize the Alaska fishing vacation” with Alito, “invited Singer to join, according to a person familiar with the trip, and asked Singer if he and Alito could fly on the billionaire’s jet.” In a stunning move, Alito penned a pre-buttal to the piece in The Wall Street Journal last night defending the trip and his nondisclosure. SPOTTED at a congressional reception hosted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to mark the upcoming one-year anniversary of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, per a tipster: Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.), Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), Dan Gillison and Hannah Wesolowski of NAMI; Laurel Stine and Emily Feltren of AFSP, Craig Obey of American Psychiatric Association, Mary Giliberti of Mental Health America, Krystle Canare of the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association, Ben Melano of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Cynthia Whitney of the Children's Hospital Association, Al Guida of Guide Consulting Services, David Covington of RI International, Natalie Tietjen of Sandy Hook Promise, Zainab Okolo of The Jed Foundation, and Mallory Newall of Ipsos Public Affairs. — And at an event with the Congressional Bourbon Caucus to celebrate the Distilled Spirits Council’s new headquarters, per a tipster: Bourbon Caucus co-Chairs Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), Reps. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Maura Jeffords of Pernod Ricard, Meredith Mellody of Brown-Forman, Joe Durso of Pernod Ricard USA, Rhod Shaw of the Alpine Group, Chris Swonger, Denzel McGuire and Jessie Brady of DISCUS.
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