As part of their continuing war on fetal tissue research, House Republicans are now accusing a tissue procurement company and three abortion clinics of violating federal privacy law.

In a letter dated Wednesday, Representative Marsha Blackburn, chair of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, charged that StemExpress and the clinics, two of which are Planned Parenthood affiliates, violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by sharing information on patients receiving abortions. A separate letter accuses StemExpress of using improper consent forms, among other infractions. The letters ask officials at the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate whether the company and the clinics broke the law.

StemExpress has vigorously denied the allegations. “StemExpress is confident there has been no violation of law and appropriate consents were made for every fetal tissue donation,” the company said in a statement. “We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or any other agency related to Ms. Blackburn’s continued unfounded accusations.”

These accusations are the latest step in an investigation that has never had any reason to exist. The House panel was formed after the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group, released deceptively edited videos purporting to reveal that Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue for profit. Since then, repeated investigations have found no evidence that Planned Parenthood did anything wrong, and members of the Center for Medical Progress have been indicted for their activities.

If Republicans on the panel were truly concerned about HIPAA compliance in fetal tissue research, they could have accepted StemExpress’s offer to testify. But they appear more interested in attempting to discredit the company and the clinics with which it works. Ms. Blackburn’s letters were featured on Fox News on Tuesday, before H.H.S. received them.

StemExpress was never given the opportunity to comment on the dozens of pages of documents appended to the letters. Several of these documents appear to come from the Center for Medical Progress.

The letters, which are posted on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s website, include the names of researchers and employees of StemExpress and Planned Parenthood, potentially putting them at risk of harassment or violence by anti-abortion extremists.

In her opening statement at the panel’s first hearing, Ms. Blackburn claimed that “something very troubling is going on related to fetal tissue and research.” Since then, the panel’s goal has been to convince the public of that, regardless of what the evidence shows.