President Donald Trump's onslaught of falsehoods about the November election misled millions of Americans, undermined faith in the electoral system, sparked a deadly riot — and has now left taxpayers with a large, and growing, bill.

The total so far: $519 million.

The costs have mounted daily as government agencies at all levels have been forced to devote public funds to respond to actions taken by Trump and his supporters, according to a Washington Post review of local, state and federal spending records, as well as interviews with government officials. The expenditures include legal fees prompted by dozens of fruitless lawsuits, enhanced security in response to death threats against poll workers, and costly repairs needed after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. That attack triggered the expensive massing of thousands of National Guard troops on the streets of Washington amid fears of additional extremist violence.

Although more than $480 million of the total is attributable to the military's estimated expenses for the troop deployment through mid-March, the financial impact of the president's refusal to concede the election is probably much higher than what has been documented thus far, and the true costs may never be known.

Many officials contacted by The Post said they were still trying to tally the cost of rapidly scaling up security to deal with the increased threat of violence from Trump supporters. Others have given up on trying to calculate their costs — perplexed over how to calculate the financial impact of a president's injecting so much instability into the democratic system — opting instead to simply absorb them as the cost of doing business in the Trump era.

Costs identified by The Washington Post related to election misinformation

Some officials have shifted their attention to making plans for additional security measures going forward in the threatening environment fostered by Trump's conspiratorial brand of politics.

"I think anytime you see an event like we saw on January 6th, it changes your perspective going forward. You don't take things for granted like we used to," said Michael Rapich, superintendent of the Utah Highway Patrol, which spent $227,000 on Jan. 17 to deploy 300 troopers to the state's Capitol after threats of an armed siege by Trump supporters ahead of the inauguration of President Biden. "It is an incredible amount of money to spend."

Other states spent even more, and officials are beginning to draft new security budgets that suggest ongoing security costs will grow significantly in the future as a result of the Capitol breach.

The bill to the federal government continues to grow daily, as thousands of National Guard troops patrol Washington and lawmakers consider a supplemental spending proposal to bolster their security.

The 25,000 troops that were deployed to Washington traveled on military planes and stayed in local hotels — their presence aimed at restoring order in the nation's capital after an attempted insurrection that overwhelmed Capitol police and ended in five deaths. The cost estimate of the troops, first reported by Bloomberg News, covers the troop presence at the Capitol through mid-March, according to Defense Department officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal figures. With an unprecedented show of force that included checkpoints and militarized zones in Washington, the troops succeeded in thwarting efforts to disrupt Biden's swearing-in, which took place on the same platform stormed by Trump-supporting rioters two weeks earlier.

Costs associated with Jan. 6 insurrection and after, including inauguration

It is not clear whether the House Democrats managing Trump's impeachment trial plan to bring up the financial costs borne by taxpayers as a result of what critics have called his "big lie." The trial begins Tuesday, and Democrats have focused heavily on Trump's speech to supporters shortly before the Capitol riot.

A spokeswoman for Trump's presidential office did not respond to a request for comment. Trump's defense lawyers have argued that he was within his rights to publicly question the election's integrity and should not be held responsible for the actions of people who attacked the Capitol after his speech.

Several states are working to calculate the taxpayer costs for additional security and related expenses in the aftermath of the November election and the Jan. 6 protests.

In California, state officials estimated they spent about $19 million, deploying 1,000 National Guard troops and hundreds of state troopers from Jan. 14 to Jan. 21 to protect the state Capitol and other locations.

"That's a lot of money, even by California standards, for one week's worth of work," California Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said in an interview. "But it was necessary work to make sure that we didn't see the damage that could have occurred, had we had a crowd that was bent on doing damage to the building."

For many states, the post-Jan. 6 costs added to a tab that has been growing since shortly after polls closed on Nov. 3. Trump's false assertion that night that he had won the election and that it was being stolen in ballot-processing centers led to credible threats against poll workers and facilities where they were working. Between added legal fees to fend off conspiracy-theory-laced lawsuits from Trump and enhanced security for election officials, states' costs resulting from the president's central fabrication about the Nov. 3 vote have escalated rapidly.

States spent untold millions of dollars on election recounts not required by law but demanded by Trump and legal and state legislative hearings.

Protesters, some armed, amassed at ballot-processing centers in places such as Maricopa County, Ariz.; Detroit; and Las Vegas in the days after Nov. 3, echoing Trump's rhetoric about a rigged election.

The added bill comes as many states are resource-strapped as a result of a pandemic that has wracked the economy and decimated state budgets.

State costs associated with Jan. 6 and pre-inauguration-related security

Chris Loftis, communications director for the Washington State Patrol, said the new "staggeringly high" costs for security and other expenses constituted "a wasteful distraction of essential and diminishing resources."

Not included in the more than $4 million estimated security bill for Washington state taxpayers is the yet-to-be-determined cost of fixing a gate at the governor's mansion broken by armed demonstrators on Jan. 6.

"Not only have our people, places and processes of democracy been attacked and damaged, but the continuing expense of this new security environment will take away from funds that could have been used for covid vaccines and treatment" and other critical expenses, Loftis said.

In Georgia, which faced a large share of Trump's post-election fraud charges, officials conducted two recounts of the presidential vote. One was triggered by Biden's narrow margin of victory over Trump, leading to a hand recount of all 5 million presidential ballots cast — the largest hand recount in U.S. history. The Trump campaign then requested another recount — this time, a machine rescan of those hand-recounted ballots. Both recounts reaffirmed Biden's victory. They also added extra costs for staff time and the security of election administrators, who faced growing threats and, in some cases, required 24-hour police details.

In Fulton County, Georgia's largest, taxpayers spent an estimated $500,000 on security alone for election officials, who faced harassment and threats fueled by conspiracy theories over the November election.

Other state and local officials spent funds to battle with Trump's well-funded team of lawyers in court. Trump and his allies devoted more than $11 million to a failed legal effort that included dozens of lawsuits and repeated losses in court due to a lack of evidence. After the Nov. 3 election and through the end of December,Trump and the Republican Party paid at least 65 firms or lawyers on election-related legal challenges, according to federal campaign finance filings.

Costs related to state legal challenges and security for election officials

In Georgia, separate figures for the Trump-requested recount were not available as of deadline.

The state of Pennsylvania hired several private law firms to deal with the onslaught of election litigation, paying outside lawyers as much as $480 per hour to fight Trump's claims of rigged voting.

How much taxpayers ultimately had to spend to beat back Trump's efforts to delay certification or overturn the results remains unknown, because many state officials did not specifically track their legal expenses.

"Although difficult to quantify, many legal hours were invested by the secretary of state's general counsel and attorneys with the New Mexico attorney general's office in responding to the baseless lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign," said Alex Curtas, a spokesman for the New Mexico secretary of state.

Many officials said that while they wished the cost incurred as a result of Trump's baseless voter-fraud allegations could have gone to more productive purposes, they saw the expenses as necessary to defending democracy.

"Safety isn't cheap. Preparedness isn't cheap," Loftis said. "But neither are the lives of the elected leaders and support staff that we have been protecting, the historic and symbolic buildings they work in or the processes of democracy they represent."

Congress is also grappling with calculating the expected costs of cleaning up and shoring up the Capitol after rioters carrying Trump flags and wearing MAGA hats smashed windows, busted doors, destroyed light fixtures and sprayed graffiti. The hours-long clash between law enforcement and insurrectionists left the building with battle scars that could take months to assess and repair, officials said.

"Statues, murals, historic benches and original shutters all suffered varying degrees of damage — primarily from pepper spray accretions and residue from tear gas and fire extinguishers — that will require cleaning and conservation," according to an initial assessment of the damage by the office of the architect of the Capitol, which is responsible for preserving and maintaining the Capitol complex.

An official estimate for repair and cleanup costs is still being compiled, said Laura Condeluci, a spokeswoman for the office.

Congressional officials are also trying to determine the costs for securing the Capitol going forward. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) requested a third-party review of security protocols for lawmakers and said she expected Congress to put forward a supplemental spending bill specifically for beefing up security for lawmakers. The $515 million annual budget of the Capitol Police is funded through congressional appropriations.

The agency, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment about how much the Jan. 6 riot cost, has placed many of its officers on 12-hour shifts and installed magnetometers and other additional security measures in recent weeks to deal with the increased threat of violence against lawmakers.

Acting Capitol Police chief Yogananda Pittman said in a Jan. 28 statement that "vast improvements" were needed for security in the future, including permanent fencing and backup forces in the vicinity of the Capitol complex.

The idea of creating a fence around the Capitol has received pushback from some congressional leaders and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), but it could ultimately be an expensive prospect if approved. The recent project to replace and upgrade the fencing around the White House complex, for example, cost about $64 million.

Federal investigators have also devoted considerable time and resources to identifying, finding and prosecuting rioters who breached the Capitol and threatened lawmakers; an officer also died after suffering injuries in the attack, and dozens of others were wounded.

U.S. authorities have opened case files on more than 400 potential suspects and obtained more than 500 grand jury subpoenas and search warrants in the sprawling investigation, acting U.S. attorney Michael R. Sherwin told reporters Jan. 26.

A nationwide manhunt has already resulted in 135 arrests and 150 federal criminally charged cases, according to Sherwin, the top prosecutor in D.C.

More charges could follow.

Law enforcement officials have estimated that roughly 800 people entered the Capitol without authorization, The Post reported last month.

The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment on the costs of the prosecutions and investigations, but some inside the bureau have described the Capitol riot case as their biggest since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Loftis, the Washington State Patrol spokesman, has said he has the full backing of his agency's leadership to speak out.

"The selfish madness that caused this national self-inflicted wound must be addressed, as it has heaped tragedy on top of tragedy," he said. "If those of us in law enforcement don't speak up in defense of democracy and public safety, then our silence becomes a dreadfully powerful statement in its own right."

About this story

Olorunnipa and Lee contacted federal, state and local officials in 22 states and the District and reviewed public records to compile the numbers for this story. They also filed public records requests and plan to update the figures in this story as additional information becomes available. The Post sought information in election battlegrounds or other places where Trump's claims prompted lawsuits, election-related disputes, security threats or other actions requiring the expenditure of public funds.

States marked "Unavailable" were still in the process of tallying costs as of deadline, or could not isolate the costs because they absorbed the costs into their existing budgets. Only costs that could be attributed to activities fueled by election misinformation were included. In Georgia, security costs were for the November election overall, including security for ballot counting, the automatic recount and the Trump-requested recount. Isolated figures for the Trump-requested recount were not available as of deadline.

Peter Hermann, Paul Sonne, Paul Kane and Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

Design and development by Tyler Remmel and Kevin Uhrmacher. Design editing by Matthew Callahan and Brian Gross. Editing by Peter Wallsten. Photo editing by Natalia Jimenez-Stuard. Copy editing by Rachael Bolek.

Toluse OlorunnipaFollowToluse "Tolu" Olorunnipa is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in 2019, after five years at Bloomberg News, where he reported on politics and policy from Washington and Florida. Michelle Ye Hee LeeFollowMichelle Ye Hee Lee is a reporter on The Washington Post's national political

Washington Post, February 6, 2021

The Wapo title was: Trump's lie that the election was stolen has cost$519 million(and counting) as taxpayers fund enhanced security, legal fees, property repairs and more.

###

February 7, 2021

Voices4America Post Script. The Washington Post began to tally the financial cost to the nation of Trump’s BIG LIE that the Election was stolen. Remember those troops in DC and in State Capitals. Guess who paid for them? YOU. Check out the @Wapo tally and share.