Trump-Russia probe: Special counsel Durham has spent at least $6.5 million on inquiry | CNN Politics
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Special Counsel John Durham is seen in Washington, DC, on May 25, 2022. Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images CNN —
John Durham, the special counsel investigating potential misconduct in the Trump-Russia probe, has spent at least $6.5 million on his inquiry, including $2 million this year, according to financial documents released Friday by the Justice Department.
The topline $6.5 million figure captures Durham's spending between October 2020 and September 2022. However, Durham started his inquiry in early 2019, and the cost of his first year and half of work has not been disclosed. That's because he was working at that time as a US attorney and was only appointed as a special counsel in October 2020.
More than $1 million of this year's spending was for employee salaries and benefits. The documents show that Durham's office also spent more than $220,000 on travel, more than $600,000 on contractual services such as IT support, and more than $100,000 on rent.
Durham's yearslong investigation has fallen short of expectations. Though he has detailed some embarrassing faux pas in the origins of the investigation into ties between Russia and former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, the special counsel has not charged any current government officials with any crime.
The probe has resulted in just one conviction: a low-level FBI lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith, who avoided jail by pleading guilty to doctoring an email in 2017 that the FBI used to justify the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide. The two other prosecutions Durham pursued - against Trump-Russia dossier source Igor Danchenko and Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann - ended in acquittals.
CNN has reported that Durham's investigation is now in its final stages as his team finishes up its written report, which will be sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The attorney general and other top Justice Department officials will decide how much of the report to make public. Garland has previously said he wants to release "as much as possible."
In comparison, special counsel Robert Mueller spent nearly $32 million during the two-year Russia investigation.
This story and headline have been updated.
CNN's Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.
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All Durham proved is that the CIA and FBI probes (plural) into Trump's secretive relationships with Putin and scores of clandestine agents of Putin's Russian State Intelligence Services were legally predicated by Trump seeking out, meeting with and establishing long term relationships with Russian spies, and those probes predated 2016 by years...
Beginning by at least 2014 and continuing right up to Election day in 2020 Trump was constantly in secret negotiations with Vlad Putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow right next to the dang Kremlin!
Trump offered Putin a luxury penthouse as a bribe!
So....how much was spent on the fake Trump-Putin collusion probe that turned up exactly nothing.
Negotiating to build a hotel in not proof of anything. You keep publishing this lie, but can't provide proof of it.
The Trump/Putin collusion is not fake.
Lol Can't give up the lie even after being continuously proven wrong. You sound just like Trump.
Then explain Durham's absolute failure!
He actually obtained a conviction of an FBI agent. Compared to Mueller, he was incredibly successful.
But why don't you try and prove your imaginary claims for once? If what you said had any truth to it, you could do it easily. But, like Trump, you just repeat baseless claims over and over and over.
I stand by my facts. So, prove me wrong!
I can't believe I actually have to point this out to you, but your little picture has nothing to do with your original claim.
Do you just assume if the words Trump and Russia are located somewhere in the vicinity of each other they mean whatever you imagine them to mean?
With apathy. Just another silly cartoon.
Durham must be running on a shoe string budget. Or maybe the DOJ and FBI was short changing him?
When it comes to wasting tax payer dollars- no one beats the Democrats.
The agenda for the incoming Congress consists almost entirely of investigating Democrats. That being said, it's one of the most important jobs of Congress to investigate the executive branch and root out corruption.
$6.5 million? Durham and his office must be audited. Anything deriving from the Trump Administration is rife with corruption.
This new congress wants to investigate corruption? They should start with Border Security Funding from 2017 thru 2021.
The House Democrats controlled the purse for all of that period.
Yet, Democrats didn’t control the House of Representatives till January of 2019 and the Senate and Presidency till Jan of 2021. Trump signed budgets for 2017 to 2021!
Uh no. And after Jan. 2019 when dems did control congress the Trump Administration refused to release any documents and all subpoenas for questioning were ignored or challenged through the courts.