Trump and Fox News Whine About the Cost of Mueller Probe – But Here’s Why it’s a Bargain

It’s just another typical Friday morning in America where the President of the United States is venting his pent up rage on Twitter. The spectacle of Donald Trump’s embarrassing and dishonest tweetstorming has become as routine as the sunrise. And this morning’s episode of “As the Trump Tweets” was every bit as confounding as all the episodes that preceded it.

Donald Trump

Among the topics that riled up the Tweeter-in-Chief was how much money was being spent on the special counsel investigation into his collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. Trump is aghast that the reported price tag so far has reached nearly $17 million dollars. Of course he surely didn’t know know that until he saw it during his “Executive Time” watching Fox News. They featured a segment on this with their chief intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge. She replied to a question as to whether there were “Any new details about the skyrocketing costs of the Russia investigation?” She said (video below):

“Well, we’ve got the report itself. And according to that report the taxpayer funded special counsel Russia probe spent nearly $17 million, as you say, since they opened, or Robert Mueller took over the investigation last year. […] according to the Justice Department report about $10 million has been spent between October and March. That includes $4.5 million spent by Mueller’s team and another $5.5 million spent by the Justice Department on other expenditures that are attributable to the investigation.”

Herridge then parroted Trump’s tweet that said precisely what she just finished saying, but added his customary partisan bullpucky that there was “No Collusion, except by the Democrats.”

However, neither Trump nor Fox News provided any context for the this expense report other than falsely portraying it as “skyrocketing.” The truth is that $17 million dollars is not especially high for this sort of legal inquiry. The Republican investigation of the Clintons over Whitewater cost more than $80 million (and found no evidence of wrongdoing). The total costs of the GOP-run Benghazi hearings were more than $20 million (also no wrongdoing. The investigation into Iran-Contra cost about $47 million. The cost of sixty votes attempting to repeal ObamaCare was at least $87 million. And Trump’s visits to his resort at Mar-A-Lago cost $67 million.

Put another way, the federal budget is currently about $4.1 trillion. Which means that $17 million is only about 0.0004% of the budget. It would be like someone making $50,000 a year and spending 20 cents. And it has already produced dozens of indictments and five guilty pleas. That seems like a pretty cost efficient expenditure for rooting out the traitorous behavior of a president and his cronies, and their efforts to obstruct justice. Don’t ya think?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.