If the House Oversight Committee’s Republican majority – or for that matter most of its Democratic members – felt a powerful motivation to uncover the truth about Jeffrey Epstein, there are many people with far more intimate knowledge of the pedophile financier and his crimes than Bill and Hillary Clinton.

But actual facts about this monumental scandal and real accountability for its perpetrators are of little concern to Rep. James Comer, the committee chairman who has singlemindedly abused his position to focus his "investigation" on the Clintons, or the House Republican leadership. Having failed to suppress the Epstein files as ordered by the White House, they have embarked on a renewed campaign of distraction and deflection.

Even the witless Comer knows that the most notorious potential witness is Donald J. Trump, whose name appears more than a thousand times, including very troubling allegations, in the files released by the Justice Department. With three million additional files yet to be examined, Trump’s name may appear many more times. Despite his false claim that the voluminous files somehow “exonerate” him, evidence in the public record proves that they had a long and intimate relationship during years when Epstein was abusing hundreds of underage girls – including at least one who had worked at Mar-a-Lago.

Rep. James Comer, the committee chair, would surely insist that the sitting president cannot be required to testify in the House of Representatives. But historically the same has been true of former presidents, a customary stricture that Comer breezily waved aside for an opportunity to harangue Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – who never knew Epstein and can reveal nothing about him, but remains forever a tempting target for House Republicans with nothing better to do.

From past observation of Comer, we know that he is uninterested in facts and regards his chairmanship as a perch from which to smear partisan opponents. So we can be confident that he won’t subpoena Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick or Elon Musk, both of whom plainly lied about their relationships with Epstein. He isn’t going to take public testimony from the Republican lawyers -- notably former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta --who arranged the sweetheart plea deal that allowed Epstein to continue his depredations.