WASHINGTON ¨C U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller¡¯s team investigating suspected Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election spent $4.5 million between October last year and March 2018, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
In addition, other Justice Department ¡°components¡± spent $5.476 million on activities supporting the investigation, the department said in a published report. Mueller¡¯s office is also looking into possible links between President Donald Trump¡¯s election campaign and Russia.
Even with the additional costs, the official figure is significantly less than what Trump has said the Mueller inquiry is costing taxpayers.
In a Twitter post earlier this month, Trump called the Mueller investigation a ¡°$20,000,000 Witch Hunt.¡± Five days earlier, he estimated the cost of the probe at $10 million.
The largest direct expenditure by Mueller¡¯s office for the period Oct. 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, was $2.738 million in salaries and benefits for its employees, the Justice Department report said.
Mueller¡¯s office spent $886,000 on rent, communications and utilities and $264,000 on ¡°contractual services,¡± most of which involved information technology, according to the report.
Last year, Mueller¡¯s office reported that in its first months from May 17 to Sept. 30, 2017, it spent a total of $3.2 million. Not counting additional spending by the Justice Department, Mueller and his team have spent a total of $7.7 million since his appointment just over a year ago.
The last time a special counsel was investigating a White House occupant, President Bill Clinton between August 1994 and February 1999, then counsel Kenneth Starr¡¯s office spent $52 million in the 4? years.
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