The Justice Department has released a reporting showing the cost of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign entanglements of the Trump campaign. Through just over a year, the total comes in at $16.7 million.
Naturally, this resulted in a morning tweet from Donald Trump. Trump had previously pegged the cost of the investigation at $20 million, an exaggeration modest enough that he likely had someone at the DOJ check the books for him. And while Trump may be wishing he had that cash so he could grab some Florida real estate for a Russian oligarch, the cost of the ongoing investigation does seem … perfectly reasonable.
Compared to the estimated $67 million the government has providing Trump with trips to Mar-a-lago to play golf, Mueller’s investigation comes off as quite a bargain. Or the $3.5 million that the EPA spent on a single year of Scott Pruitt’s personal SWAT team.
It would probably be possible to pay for the Mueller investigation either out of first class flights by Pruitt, or Ben Carson’s decorating budget. In just the first nine months of 2017, Donald Trump personally charged the Secret Service $137,000 to rent golf carts. So they can protect Donald Trump. That’s in addition to the $2.4 million that the Secret Service paid Trump to rent space in his own building.
But if Donald Trump is really concerned about the cost of the Mueller investigation costs, we could hold a national Kickstarter. At the special bonus add on could be an orange jumpsuit.