The independent counsel investigating former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros is spending money these days at twice the rate of the counsel investigating the Valerie Plame leak. And Cisneros case was closed years ago!
From the Washington Post: (Link not up yet)
Independent Counsel's Total for Cisneros Case Nears $21 Million// (Washn)
By Jonathan Weisman=(c) 2005, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON--Nearly a decade after he was appointed to investigate then-Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, independent counsel David M. Barrett spent more than $1.26 million of federal money in the last six months of fiscal 2004, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday.
Since its inception, the Cisneros investigation has cost nearly $21 million, a total rivaling some of the largest independent counsel investigations in history. Much of the money has gone for pay and benefits, travel, rent and contractors.
Barrett was appointed in May 1995 to investigate allegations that Cisneros lied to the FBI about money he paid to a former mistress. Cisneros pleaded guilty in September 1999 and paid a $10,000 fine and a $25 court assessment. He was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton. By then, Barrett had spent $10.3 million on his investigation, and Congress had allowed the independent counsel law to lapse.
...
In the final six months of fiscal 2003, Barrett spent $839,085. In the first half of 2004, he spent $871,204, and in the most recent six-month span, he was at $1.26 million, a level he had not reached since early 2001.
``There is a trend, and it's not a decline,'' said Hodge Herry, assistant director of financial management and assurance at the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. .
In contrast, the GAO reported, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is conducting an investigation of the leak of an intelligence officer's name, spent $584,899, less than half of Barrett's expenditures. In all of fiscal 2004, Fitzgerald spent $611,491. Barrett spent $2.13 million.
