James Comer Is Effectively Killing the Epstein Investigation

Republicans have found a new way to conduct the Epstein investigation. Democrats insist it’s just another attempt to sweep the whole scandal under the rug.Democrats on the House Oversight Committee flamed House Oversight Chair James Comer in a congressional memo for “running scared,” accusing the Kentucky Republican of changing the Epstein investigation proceedings into informal “roundtables” that lack any rules.In this format, there’s no opportunity to consider subpoenas, and no recourse for Democrats to force votes on transparency measures, according to the memo shared among Democratic lawmakers last week.Perhaps worst of all, the roundtables are designed to look and feel like “regular committee hearings,” according to the memo, but don’t require witnesses to speak under oath. That will effectively void the investigation of any value, giving potential witnesses an opportunity to lie before Congress without consequence.“In a development with little precedent in modern Congressional history, Oversight Republicans have suspended the use of traditional committee hearings in favor of” the roundtables, the memo reads. “Oversight Republicans are avoiding hearings to block bipartisan subpoena motions they are losing. This shift doesn’t just affect Committee procedure—it limits Congress’s ability to uncover the truth and hold powerful actors accountable.“By holding roundtables, Republicans are denying Members their basic rights as lawmakers,” the memo states. “Oversight requires transparency, rules, and accountability. Republicans are abandoning all three. Instead of holding real hearings, they are choosing forums designed to avoid scrutiny—because they are losing when the facts are on the table.”The transition to hosting roundtables appears to be an attempt by Republican leadership to curtail the subpoena power of both parties. For months, Republicans and Democrats alike have hijacked committee hearings in order to vote on subpoenas that would require high-profile figures to speak on the Epstein investigation.Several prominent figures were named as Epstein associates in the millions of recently released case files. They include Bath and Body Works co-founder Les Wexner, American financier and investor Leon Black, disgraced British former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and Donald Trump.Trump is mentioned more than 38,000 times in the Epstein files, and was flagged in more than 5,300 files in the document cache. Those include instances in which Trump was accused—by both victims and witnesses—of abusing children, such as one instance in which he allegedly attempted to force a girl between the ages of 13 and 15 years old to give him oral sex before he punched her in the head for biting his penis.