Justice puts Mueller probe’s cost at $32 million

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month long investigation cost approximately $32 million, according to new figures released Friday from the Department of Justice.

Between October 2018 and the end of May 2019, Mueller’s investigative team spent roughly $6.5 million during the last six months of his investigation. It has previously spent $25 million through September of last year. 

{mosads}The Justice Department said some of the costs would have been incurred even without Mueller’s investigation.

Mueller testified before Congress last week in what is likely to be his only Capitol Hill appearance about his investigation. 

Mueller’s investigation determined that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in the country’s election interference efforts, but he declined to make a determination as to whether President Trump obstructed justice.

During his testimony, Mueller heavily emphasized Russia’s active measures to interfere in the 2016 election, and largely sought to avoid getting pulled into the middle of the political scrum over obstruction.

Mueller did not engage when Democrats sought to get him to paint a damaging picture of the president by reading from his report, particularly on the 11 episodes of obstruction that his probe examined. 

The former FBI chief also avoided Republicans’ questions pressing him to discuss the origins of the Russia probe and allegations of an anti-Trump bias among top members of the FBI and DOJ.

Trump and his GOP allies have repeatedly bashed the investigation as a “witch hunt,” a message they amplified repeatedly heading into Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.