"murderers row" of "Deep State" actors, from the land of maga-CT-paranoia, and Trump himself. Garland, Mueller, Comey, Holder, Lynch, Gonzalez, Barr, and Sessions were some of the others they wanted to call up, along with the Clintons. Note that they also called Les Wexner (who's lawyers appeared on his behalf, iirc) and Ghislaine Maxwell, who appeared by video from jail. More on that below.

What follows is my personal theory.

If you go back and look at what was said when the whole thing started, the official framing by the GQP was that this was about federal inaction / mismanagement / cover‑ups by DOJ and other agencies. Comer's office said it was about "The federal government’s failures in handling the case, especially the DOJ and federal law enforcement"

So, given that stated pretext, along with the list of people they wanted to call up, clearly the goal of the GQPers of the committee all along was NOT any investigation into the crimes themselves. Rather, its sole purpose was to try to "expose the Deep State" as "protectors of Epstein" vis-a-vis their lack of prosecutions surrounding the Epstein case.

As an aside, I think they also thought they were going to get an "assist" from Ghislaine Maxwell. She claimed in a court filing (where she's asking for her conviction to be overturned) a few months back that she knew of 20 people who were "being protected" or some such thing. I think the GQP thought they'd struck gold in their quest to Expose The Deep State as Protectors of Democrat Pedos, so they called her to the stand. But they declined to grant her complete immunity for her testimony, so she plead the 5th to all their questions.

If I'm correct, they meant to hone in on anyone even tangentially related to Epstein who was "left-leaning" (like Larry Summers as a for-instance), but never charged for wrongdoing, and grill the people who were in charge like Garland, Comey, Lynch and Holder, and try to make it look like they were "protecting Democrats" or "others in the Deep State". And probably protecting illegal immigrants, black people, gay people, and trans people. Just because.

This would've pleased Trump. He wants people to believe there was a Deep State that was "out to get him", and the FBI and DoJ were "weaponized", even in his first term, but certainly under Obama and Biden. By diminishing these institution's integrity, it casts into doubt the investigations conducted against him, such as Jack Smith's cases. Also he thought that it would look good for him if his GQP lackeys in the House were to start up an Epstein investigation, make it seem like IQ47 had nothing to hide. Also, this way, Trump could have it "out of the way" while the GQP held the gavel.

The problem is, prior to the IQ47 regime, with the exception of the 2008 Acosta sweetheart deal (under Bush), the DoJ likely actually handled everything properly and according to the law. In reality, solid evidence to charge anyone but Epstein and Maxwell for Federal crimes was just not available, so they didn't. And they handed off many investigations to state authorities for possible state-level crimes, but none of those ever panned out either.

Thus, my working theory is that the GQP'ers are abandoning the plan because they've realized it was a dumb idea (almost certainly came from Trump in the first place, and all his ideas are fucking stupid), and was never going to work they way they/he wanted it to, mostly because it's bullshit to begin with. There was never any systematic coverup or failure to properly act. It just takes a lot to make a federal case, esp. with sex crimes that took place many years ago. The DoJ declines to do so for that reason, all the damn time.

Now, Trump himself may've have ordered them to stop, and he may have feared what might come out about him if they kept probing. It's possible. I don't know.

Like I say it's just my working theory