Robert Mueller spent $733,969 to acquire office equipment for the investigation. | Andrew Burton/Getty Images Russia probe cost DOJ $6.7 million in months after Mueller appointment

The Justice Department spent $6.7 million on its probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election in the four-and-a-half months after special counsel Robert Mueller's appointment, according to a report released Tuesday.

Of the total, only $3.2 million was spent directly by Mueller on salaries, travel, rent and equipment through September.


The other $3.5 million was spent on DOJ operations and would have been spent on its own pre-existing Russia investigations if Mueller hadn't been tapped to take over in mid-May. DOJ said it wasn’t legally required to figure out this total, and past special counsels didn’t tabulate it.

The report could provide fodder for President Donald Trump and allies who say the investigation has a blank check and no end in sight.

Republicans were critical of Mueller’s spending even before they’d seen his receipts, with former White House strategist Steve Bannon earlier this fall urging Trump defund the probe, though the White House said Trump would not do that.

On Capitol Hill, Florida GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis tried without success earlier this summer to attach an amendment to a House budget resolution that would have halted Mueller’s funding just six months into the job.

Spokesmen for DeSantis and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), two of Mueller’s leading critics, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The GOP chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations committees declined to comment.

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Coming to Mueller’s defense, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein said $3.2 million in spending “is entirely reasonable given the results we’ve already seen.” The California Democrat noted the special counsel in less than five months had already brought charges against two former senior Trump campaign aides, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and obtained guilty pleas from former national security adviser Michael Flynn and ex-campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.

“I continue to strongly support Bob Mueller’s investigation and believe he should receive all the resources he needs to follow the facts and the law where they lead,” Feinstein said.

Mueller’s spending totals include $1.7 million for salaries and benefits, though $1.2 million of that went to DOJ employees who have been detailed to the Mueller probe.

New hires cost $500,696 for the period between Mueller’s appointment in mid-May and the end of September.

In addition to salaries, Mueller also spent $733,969 to acquire office equipment for the investigation, which the DOJ report said would remain federal government property after the probe ends. The special counsel spent $223,643 for travel, almost entirely for staffers who have temporarily relocated to the investigation’s headquarters in Washington.

The Mueller probe reported $157,339 in receipts for a variety of contractual services, including $111,245 for information technology, $24,456 for transcription and $17,217 for building services.

The Mueller budget is drawn from a permanent Treasury Department account that is not tied to the annual appropriations process. DOJ rules state Mueller “shall be provided all appropriate resources” to do his work, though his spending is being audited by DOJ’s Justice Management Division every six months.

Mueller’s next public report will be released at some point after his receipts through March 31, 2018 are turned over for review, special counsel spokesman Joshua Stueve said Tuesday.

How the special counsel’s spending totals are made public represents a break from past precedent. Historically, the Government Accountability Office had conducted the audits of independent counsel and special counsel investigations. Many of those reports, reflecting both the frequency that special counsels worked and the length of time some of them took to complete work, often covered multiple probes. For example, a March 2001 GAO report listed the latest expenses for seven investigations that all related to President Bill Clinton.

In all, there have been 21 completed independent counsel and special counsel investigations of administration practices dating back to the Carter administration. Their total price tag: $231 million — $339 million when adjusted for inflation. Twelve of those cases concluded with no indictments.

Six separate investigations during the Clinton administration ran up costs of more than $140 million. President Ronald Reagan faced eight different probes, including Iran-Contra, for a total of more than $84 million, according to a POLITICO review of government audits and reports on their spending.

