The US Department of Justice (DOJ) spent more than $23 million investigating figures associated with former President Donald Trump during his four-year term, according to a new analysis.
That figure includes costs related to investigating the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump’s campaign team and a Russian lawyer, and probes into Trump’s businesses and inaugural committee. The Associated Press reported on the analysis Wednesday.
The report’s authors, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), determined the Trump-related investigations cost the DOJ just under $23 million from 2016 through 2020, while the investigation into then-candidate Joe Biden’s son and his business dealings in Ukraine cost only $6.4 million.
The report stated that crimes related to the Trump campaign were investigated across six different prosecutors’ offices from 2016 to 2020, while only one prosecutors’ office investigated the Biden matter. The differences in costs may be attributed to the scope of criminal activity, the AP reported.
The POGO report also stated that the Trump administration’s Department of Justice was “strictly business-focused” and that investigations often covered “business practices, company policies, and industry-wide behavior that potentially violated the law.”
The Biden investigation was considered a much smaller-scale case, focusing on the former vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, and his alleged improper influence on foreign business deals.
