Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel on May 17, 2017, and tasked with finding out whether or not members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In the year since his appointment, his team has managed to secure guilty pleas from Donald Trump’s foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos, onetime national security adviser Michael Flynn and Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates, among others.
Although they have managed to indict Gates’ former business partner Paul Manafort on charges of conspiracy, tax and money laundering, he has pleaded not guilty and plans to fight until the bitter end.
The team has also gotten indictments against 13 Russians who are charged with engaging in an information-warfare campaign that benefited Trump and hurt the chances of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
All of that has come at a cost, and according to NPR, so far the tab is $17 million. A Justice Department statement of expenditures says that most of that money has gone toward covering the salaries of those on Mueller’s team, followed by rent and information technology services.
As NPR notes, earlier this month, Trump tweeted that Mueller’s investigation was a “soon to be $20,000,000 Witch Hunt, composed of 13 Angry and Heavily Conflicted Democrats and two people who have worked for Obama for 8 years, STOP!”
Maybe he could save us all the expense and just come clean or resign.