Trump's False Election Claims Cost Taxpayers Over $500m

An analysis conducted by the Washington Post has found that Donald Trump's false claims about the election has resulted in a bill for U.S. taxpayers that has run to hundreds of millions of dollars. The former president spread baseless claims about election fraud ranging from dead people casting ballots to machine tampering, culminating in a deadly riot at the Capitol that left five people dead. In response, government agencies had to use public funding for a series of extra measures such as enhanced security and the handling of lawsuits, resulting in a $519 million bill that continues to rise daily.

That encompasses a range of factors such as beefed up security due to death threats against poll workers and costly repair work at the Capitol in the wake of January 06. However, the bulk of the money was spent on the National Guard deployment with 25,000 troops deployed to Washington D.C. to provide extra security during inauguration week. That came with a $480 million bill through March. D.C. Police also brought in an extra 850 members as part of a surge that had a bill of some $8.8 million.

Spending wasn't just high in Washington D.C. and 17 other states spent a collective $28.3 million to boost their own pre-inauguration security measures. California spent the most with around $19 million of taxpayers money used to cover a deployment of 1,000 National Guard members and hundreds of state troopers to defend the state Capitol and other locations. Ohio taxpayers footed the $1.2 million bill for a National Guard deployment at the Columbus Statehouse while public funding was also used to deploy helicopters for the monitoring of potential demonstrations in both Texas and North Carolina. The Washington Post states that the financial impact of Trump's refusal to concede the election is likely far higher than $518 million and that the true costs might never be known.