by WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Jack Smith spent more than $5 million in the first four months of federal investigations into former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Expense statements released by the Justice Department on Friday showed Smith’s office spent $5.4 million between his appointment last year and last March. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to lead the two separate investigations in November 2022.
The bulk of that spending, more than $4 million, was spent on salaries and benefits for staff working on his team and payments to contractors for services, including litigation and investigative support, IT services and transcriptions.
The remaining amount was spent on rent, equipment, supplies and printing costs, the documents show.
The spending also showed that other components of the Justice Department spent more than $3.8 million to support Smith’s office. This included “hours worked by agents and investigative support analysts, as well as the cost of special counsel protection details where warranted,” the document says.
Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Hur, who was appointed in January to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, spent nearly $616,000 through March, according to a separate spending statement released by the Justice Department. The largest amount spent was also on salaries and benefits for staff members.
Smith’s office presented evidence in the Trump classified documents case, one of its two investigations into the former president, before a federal grand jury, which indicted Trump last month on charges that he misled federal investigators in his attempt to holding on to a trove of sensitive data. material that he supposedly knew was still classified.
Trump faces 37 felony counts, including false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice and willful withholding of national defense information, related to the more than 100 classified documents that were recovered from his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida on last year, according to the prosecution. He pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Trump is scheduled to face trial, tentatively scheduled for August, though prosecutors are calling for it to be delayed until later this year.
Meanwhile, Smith’s office continues to investigate Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. It’s unclear when that investigation will be completed or if it will lead to another indictment. against the former president.
dareh gregorian contributed.
