One of the crazy factoids that’s buzzing around the left side of the blogosphere says that Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Joe Wilson matter only cost $723,000. It’s been on Daily Kos and 30 other blogs, and widely used by Air Hysteria’s hosts. It’s based on a sloppy reading of a story in the Washington Post:
In its first 15 months, the investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office.
But it’s not true.
GAO does report on some of the expenditures of Special Counsels, but their reports don’t come out for a year after the expenditures are made. Every six months, they issue a report on the expenditures that were made in a six month period ending six months before the report, so we don’t have figures for the past year.
The reports that we do have are pretty sketchy, as they don’t include all the personnel costs associated with government employees, like Fitzgerald himself, for example.
Fitzgerald started in Dec. 03, and the report for the period ending Mar 04 shows personnel costs of only $13,330. That’s one cheap lawyer.
In the next six months, ending Sept 2004, Fitzgerald got his operation ramped-up and charged $584,899, again exclusive of certain personnel costs for government employees.
In the next half-year, Fitzgerald charged $112,550 plus an additional $35,195 for Justice Department lawyers and an unspecified amount for FBI investigators:
Also, certain costs were incurred by detailees from the Federal Bureau of Investigation involved in the investigation but the associated costs were not readily identifiable. Such costs of detailees are not reflected in the statement of expenditures
So that’s already $759,236 not counting FBI agents and anything that happened since March of this year. Certainly, the costs are in the millions already, but we won’t know the basics for a year, and even though we won’t know the whole story. One thing is clear, however: the costs of this investigation are already a lot more than the figure used by the Kossacks.
And yes, this type of investigation is cheaper than Ken Starr’s, but no more substantial.
That amount of money is what the Republican Party would refer to as “nothing.” But that’s what profligate, big spending political parties are like. It’s all corporate welfare, tax dodges and insider trading with these zany guys.
But forget that! Bow before the Erupting Hegemony of the Carolina Hurricanes!
That’s a hard case to make since we don’t actually know how much this investigation has cost, but we do know that the Texas Longhorns are number one in the BCS.
GAO does report on some of the expenditures of Special Counsels, but their reports don’t come out for a year after the expenditures are made. Every six months, they issue a report on the expenditures that were made in a six month period ending six months before the report, so we don’t have figures for the past year.
Not true… If they issue a report on the expenditures that were made in a six month period ending six months before the report, then you always know how much was spent in the period AT LEAST six months before and NOT MORE THAN a year before the current date. Right now, since the last report came out on Sept. 30 for the six month period ending March 31st, there are only about seven months that have not yet been accounted for.
You also say:
So that’s already $759,236 not counting FBI agents and anything that happened since March of this year.
Since the GAO report says:
It sounds like these costs will never be accounted for, or considered part of the special prosecutor’s investigation expense. As in, the FBI is not going to bill other agencies for providing support services that fulfill its primary charter that it receives federal funding for in the first place — namely, investigations.
In any case, no matter how you spin it, this has been a much more efficient and economical (and substantial) operation than Ken Starr’s.
How about those Oklahoma City Hornets?