The office of special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading several high-profile investigations into former President Donald Trump, has spent more than $5 million since his appointment in November, according to the first public accounting of his expenses.
Smith is investigating efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prosecuting former Trump for allegedly retaining classified information after he left the White House.
More than $2 million of that cost went to employee salaries, the report released Friday says. Another $1 million dollars paid for investigative support and more than $80,000 went to helping employees relocate while they worked for the special counsel. The reports run through March 31, 2023.
While Smith's topline number dramatically tops the amount that special counsels Robert Hur and John Durham spent in the same timeframe, about $600,000 and $1 million respectively, his spending on investigations into the Trump and his allies still pales in comparison to the nearly $32 million that Robert Mueller spent during his years-long prove into whether Russia swayed the 2016 election for Trump.
Hur, who is leading the investigation into the handling of classified documents found at Joe Biden's home and former private office, also spent a significant amount of his expenses on employee compensation. Hur was appointed just a few months after Smith and has not made any major public moves.
Durham spent over $7 million for his special counsel probe
Durham, the special counsel appointed to investigate potential misconduct in the Trump-Russia probe, spent more than $7 million from the time he started his investigation as a special counsel, according to Friday's filing.
Durham's work as a special counsel concluded in May after the release of a 300-page report, which strongly rebuked the FBI's investigation into Trump, highlighting multiple errors in the origins of the bureau's investigation into ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign.
The investigation, however, resulted in one guilty plea of an FBI lawyer who admitted to doctoring an email regarding a surveillance warrant. Durham's other two prosecutions against a campaign lawyer for Hillary Clinton and a source for the Trump-Russia dossier both ended in acquittals.
