Special Counsel Spends $1.5 Million in Probe of Russia Inquiry
Chris Strohm, 28 May 2021
The U.S. Justice Department released the first official expenditure report for the special investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia inquiry — providing a rare bit of insight into the secretive review more than two years after it was begun in response to demands by then-President Donald Trump.
The inquiry being led by Special Counsel John Durham spent about $1.5 million from Oct. 19 to March 31, according to the report from the Justice Department released Thursday. Of that, Durham directly spent about $934,000, mostly on personnel, while Justice Department units spent about $520,000 to support the investigation, according to the five-page report.
In April 2019, Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham, a U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to look into whether FBI or intelligence officials committed crimes when they investigated whether anyone associated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in that year’s election.
Barr named Durham as a special counsel in October 2020 in an effort to protect him if Trump lost re-election. It’s unclear how much Durham has spent in total, as he was only required to report expenditures since the special counsel designation.
