Latest Expenditure Data Shows Mueller Probe Cost About $25 Million Through September

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In roughly its first year and a half, special counsel Robert Mueller III’s investigation cost the government a little more than $25 million, according to expenditure data released Friday.

Mueller’s total tab increased about $8.4 million from April 1 through Sept. 30 – bringing his total to about $25.1 million, the data shows. That figure includes both what Mueller’s office itself spent, and what Justice Department components spent on things attributable to his investigation.

President Donald Trump has periodically complained about the cost of Mueller’s probe to taxpayers. In a tweet late last week that seemed to exaggerate the publicly known price tag, the president claimed the investigation came with “a cost of over $30,000,000,” and had found, “NO COLLUSION!”

Analysts say that Mueller’s budget is not out of line with previous independent counsels. Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, for example, spent more than $52 million investigating President Bill Clinton, and the five independent counsels appointed to look into various Clinton-related matters during the 1990s spent more than $100 million.

Mueller’s work, too, has led to federal authorities being able to seize several multimillion-dollar properties belonging to Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman.

Mueller has so far brought charges against 33 people in his probe, which began in May 2017. He has turned several people who were once Trump’s closest advisers – including former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen – into witnesses helping his case. He also has charged more than two dozen Russians with hacking and social media campaigns meant to influence the 2016 election.

Still, Mueller has not yet answered the core question of his investigation: whether the Russian influence operations were coordinated with the Trump campaign.

The latest expenditure report, for the April through September time period, is the third Mueller has filed. He reported spending the most money, $2.88 million, on personnel, along with about $942,000 on rent, communications and utilities and $580,000 on travel and transportation. The $8.4 million total is slightly less than the roughly $10 million in expenditures he had tallied in the previous six months.

The money that Mueller spent directly comes from an indefinite appropriation for independent counsels, which the Justice Department determined could be used to fund Mueller’s work.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post · Matt Zapotosky  

{Matzav.com}


4 COMMENTS

  1. That’s OUR hard-earned money. And they’re still allowing him to continue the hoax witch hunt in order to avoid being indicted in his Uranium One Crime for which he was paid $17 MILLION DOLLARS by the Clintons for his role in facilitating the deal. Herr Mueller is a common criminal and petty thief robbing the American people of their hard earned tax dollars and squandering everyone’s time and resources for his personal anti-Trump witch hunt. ARREST HIM NOW!

  2. What a cushy no show job. How can I get in?
    Why is there no oversight if tax dollars are being used? Where is the loud mouth Adam Schiff with his demand for an investigation into the spending by this group? How tax dollars are being spent only matters if it’s not against your opponents?

  3. The plea agreement reached between Mueller and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort includes forfeiture of certain property to the government.
    Those properties will pay for the whole investigation with money to spare.

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