Investigations into the suspected misuse of confidential materials by the former president Donald Trump and his attempts to rig the 2020 election have cost more than $9 million.
According to a Justice Department summary of expenditures filed on Friday, the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who is in charge of the investigations, spent more than $5.4 million on employee wages, travel, rent, and supplies from November 2022 until the end of March.
According to the budget breakdown, Smith was supported by an additional $3.8 million from Justice Department entities.
That includes ‘the cost of protective details for the Special Counsel when warranted’, states the document.
The statement of expenditures was disclosed a few weeks after Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges around his alleged mishandling of classified documents, and a day after his valet Walt Nauta pleaded not guilty to six charges relating to him allegedly assisting Trump in hiding classified records.
While the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump have cost American taxpayers millions of dollars, Trump’s indictment in the classified documents case has boosted his 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump on the day after he was criminally charged at a Miami federal courthouse said that the ‘indictment hoax’ raised him $6.6million. The former president said that $2.1million of that was donated at his Bedminster golf club where he delivered a speech hours after his arraignment. The other $4.5million came from digital fundraising.
The Justice Department on Friday also released cost summaries of investigations by two other special counsels.
Special counsel John Durham – who was appointed to investigate the FBI’s probe of Trump and the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election – spent $1.1million from October to March winding down his inquiry. Durham’s investigation has cost a total of about $7.6million since he was tasked in 2020 during the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Hur, who is probing whether President Joe Biden mishandled classified documents found in his home and former office, spent $615,962 in two-and-a-half month covered by the summary.