With Hunter Biden on trial, special counsel spending grows
CNN
Special counsel David Weiss’ office spent a total of $3.4 million over the past six months, a dramatic increase as it took Hunter Biden to trial in Delaware on gun-related charges and secured a conviction of the president’s son.
Special counsel David Weiss’ office spent a total of $3.4 million over the past six months, a dramatic increase as it took Hunter Biden to trial in Delaware on gun-related charges and secured a conviction of the president’s son. Weiss’ expenditures reached $2.3 million for the six months ending in March. Weiss’ office also incurred an additional expense of $1.1 million for the cost of using other already existing Justice Department resources, such as security protection, for a total outlay of about $3.4 million, according to financial disclosures released Friday. In the previous period from Weiss’ appointment in August 2023 through the end of September that year, Weiss only spent about $183,000 and used $132,000 of standing department resources. Spending by two other Justice Department-appointed special counsels, Jack Smith and Robert Hur, decreased slightly compared with the six months prior. The latest numbers released Friday for each office represent spending on travel, staff, offices and other supplies and services from October last year through the end of March. The disclosures come as courts have upped their scrutiny of special counsel office operations. In recent weeks, defendants being prosecuted by two of the special counsels — Hunter Biden and Donald Trump — have taken issue with the amounts the offices have spent on their respective investigations and questioned the Justice Department’s ability to use attorney-general appointed special counsels rather than other prosecutors in existing offices throughout the country. Smith’s office, which brought federal criminal cases against Trump in Florida and Washington, DC, spent $6.63 million from October through March plus used $5.2 million of DOJ resources, for a total of about $11.8 million, compared with more than $14 million in the previous six months.
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