Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller exits during a break in testimony during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on the Office of Special Counsel's investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 24, 2019. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

The nearly two-year special counsel investigation of Russian election interference led by Robert Mueller cost nearly $32 million in total, a new filing shows. The expenditures report, shared with CNBC by the Department of Justice on Friday, covers the final eight months of the probe, in which the special counsel spent about $6.56 million. About $4.12 million of that was spent through the special counsel's office directly, and $2.44 million came from DOJ components that supported Mueller's office. The first 16 months of the probe cost $25.2 million in total.

The special counsel's fourth and final spending report took significantly longer to disclose than prior filings, and arrived weeks after Justice Department officials expected it to be made public. But even in its absence, political leaders including President Donald Trump and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., have made the cost of the investigation a focal point of their arguments for or against it. Trump, without providing evidence, has asserted since at least November of last year that the investigation cost more than $40 million. Trump TWEET When will this illegal Joseph McCarthy style Witch Hunt, one that has shattered so many innocent lives, ever end-or will it just go on forever? After wasting more than $40,000,000 (is that possible?), it has proven only one thing-there was NO Collusion with Russia. So Ridiculous! But Democrats have countered that the millions of dollars estimated to be forfeited from individuals found guilty through the probe — such as Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort — effectively zeroed out the costs. "You secured the convictions of President Trump's campaign chairman, his deputy campaign manager, his national security advisor, and his personal lawyer, among others," Nadler said at the start of Mueller's historic testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week. "In the Paul Manafort case alone, you recovered as much as $42 million, so that the cost of your investigation to the taxpayers approaches zero."