A talking point swelled up in the right wing Twitterverse this weekend, after this tweet by the Cheeto Mussolini:
And then again the next day:
SEVENTEEN MILLIONS DOLLARS!?!?!?! Quelle horreur! That's a lot of scratch. You know, Republicans keep telling us that they're the party of fiscal responsibility.
[T]hat number is dwarfed by the amount required to pay for the president's numerous trips to the "Winter White House," which Washington Post and Politico analyses have estimated to cost taxpayers on average between $1 million and $3 million per trip.
As of Dec. 26, Trump had spent 39 days at Mar-a-Lago in 2017. Trump took his 17th trip to the property in April, according to Town and Country magazine.
AP estimates that we have paid $63 million for Trump's jaunts to Mar-A-Lago since he's taken office. And that doesn't include the estimated $75 million it cost for Melania and Barron to stay in New York.
And it's not as if Mueller has nothing to show for the money. Per Vox, there are 22 indictments and plea deals to date:
1) George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, pleaded guilty in October to making false statements to the FBI.
2) Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, pleaded guilty in December to making false statements to the FBI.
3) Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, was indicted in October in Washington, DC on charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and false statements — all related to his work for Ukrainian politicians before he joined the Trump campaign. He’s pleaded not guilty on all counts. Then, in February, Mueller filed a new case against him in Virginia, with tax, financial, and bank fraud charges.
4) Rick Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s longtime junior business partner, was indicted on similar charges to Manafort. But in February he agreed to a plea deal with Mueller’s team, pleading guilty to just one false statements charge and one conspiracy charge.
5-20) 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies were indicted on conspiracy charges, with some also being accused of identity theft. The charges related to a Russian propaganda effort designed to interfere with the 2016 campaign. The companies involved are the Internet Research Agency, often described as a “Russian troll farm,” and two other companies that helped finance it. The Russian nationals indicted include 12 of the agency’s employees and its alleged financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
21) Richard Pinedo: This California man pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge in connection with the Russian indictments, and has agreed to cooperate with Mueller.
22) Alex van der Zwaan: This London lawyer pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Rick Gates and another unnamed person based in Ukraine.
Considering that the Ken Starr Whitewater investigation cost us $83 million in today's dollars and resulted in a single indictment for lying to Congress and the various Benghazi investigations cost $6.7 million and resulted in no indictments, I'd say we're getting a bargain.
