Jan. 6 panel's final report will tackle foreign exploitation of Trump election lies

The Jan. 6 select committee’s final report will include analysis of foreign adversaries' attempts to capitalize on Donald Trump’s election disinformation, according to a person familiar with the investigation's long-awaited culmination that's set for release later Wednesday.

The foreign influence section will appear as one of four appendices to the final report’s eight chapters. The first two appendices are focused on Capitol security and the slow mobilization of the National Guard to respond to the Jan. 6 riot by Trump supporters intent on disrupting the certification of his loss to Joe Biden.

The third appendix covers the work of the select committee's so-called “green team,” which scrutinized the money trail behind the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse that Trump headlined on Jan. 6, which quickly metastasized into a Capitol siege. Committee members have raised the prospect of potential campaign finance violations related to the pre-riot rally.

The full report is expected to surpass 800 pages in length, cataloging Trump’s multi-front bid to subvert the 2020 election and prevent Biden from taking office. When those plans failed, the select committee has outlined, Trump exhorted his supporters to descend on Washington and pointed an angry crowd to the Capitol, where outnumbered and under-prepared police officers were quickly overwhelmed by the violent mob.

The select committee has spent months unspooling portions of that story, alleging that Trump committed multiple crimes in his quest to corruptly seize a second term. But the committee's final report will put the definitive stamp on a year and a half of investigative work that successfully cracked elements of Trump’s inner circle as lawmakers pieced together the former president's scheme.

The report will also mark the select committee's effective passage of its investigative torch to federal prosecutors, who can continue their probe of Trump-backed election subversion outside of Congress’ limited timeline. The select committee has begun sharing much of its evidence with the Justice Department in response to a Dec. 5 letter from special counsel Jack Smith, who asked the panel for its full collection of evidence and witness transcripts.

A person familiar with the letter from DOJ, which was first reported by Punchbowl News, indicated that among the initial batch of transcripts shared by the panel were interviews with prominent Trump-linked lawyers — including former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, former Attorney General Bill Barr, Barr's successor Jeffrey Rosen, Rosen’s deputy Richard Donoghue and former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief legal counsel Greg Jacob.