7th Wrestler: Jordan “Definitely Knew”

Deliciously, GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's problems and accusations that he was well aware of sexual abuse taking place with members of the Ohio State wrestling team by the team physician. Now, seven of the former wrestlers have stated that Jordan had to know what was happening and merely looked away rather than protect the team's members. All of this is coming out as Jordan, a reactionary, anti-gay, anti-woman Republican had been maneuvering to succeed the toxic Paul Ryan as speaker of the House of Representatives.  With luck, the growing scandal will derail Jordan's efforts and, with more luck, force him from office.  Jordan embodies so much of what is wrong with today's Republican Party.  Here are excerpts from the Washington Post:

A seventh former Ohio State University wrestler said Saturday that he believes Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) knew about inappropriate behavior that allegedly took place in the school’s athletic department three decades ago, as two more former team members came to Jordan’s defense.

David Range, who wrestled for Ohio State in the late 1980s, said Jordan had to have known about alleged sexual misconduct by Richard Strauss, an athletic doctor whose behavior is under investigation by the school, because it happened regularly to team members and people talked about it.

“Jordan definitely knew that these things were happening — yes, most definitely,” Range told The Washington Post. “It was there. He knew about it because it was an everyday occurrence.”

Range said he never discussed the issue directly with Jordan one on one and did not know whether anyone made a formal report, but he said Jordan was present during group conversations in the locker room about Strauss’s behavior.

“We talked about it all the time in the locker room” while Jordan was there, he said.

Range said Strauss, who has been accused of abusing athletes in more than a dozen sports during his time as an athletic doctor, touched wrestlers inappropriately during examinations and ogled them in the locker room showers.

Jordan has been under scrutiny since July 3, when NBC News quoted three former wrestlers saying he knew or must have known about inappropriate behavior in the athletic department. Three others have said the same in news accounts since then.

The reports come at a delicate time for Jordan, who has been under pressure from conservative political organizations to mount a bid to replace Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who will not run for reelection.

Asked for comment for this story, a spokesman for Jordan referred The Post to his interview with Fox News on Friday night.

Michael Alf, who joined the team in the late 1980s, said the environment in the Ohio State locker room was “definitely disturbing,” with non-team members using the showers to ogle the wrestlers.

“There was definitely inappropriate things that in my opinion were pretty disgusting going on all around us. You just took your shower and got out,” he said.

Nothing more fun that exposing the hypocrisy of a "family values" Republican.  I truly hoe this takes Jordan down before it is all over.

"A Cesspool of Deviancy": More Witnesses Test Jim Jordan Specious Denials

Witnesses indicate Jordan is lying about his knowledge of ongoing sexual abuse. 

Perhaps I should not gloat, but I love seeing morally bankrupt Republicans who willingly prostitute themselves to hate-filled Christian extremists and bloviate about "family values" self-immolate as the get caught up in sex scandals.   A perfect example is former House Speaker Dennis Hastert who was a sexual predator who was ultimate criminally convicted or abuse of your athletes. Another is former Virginia 2nd district congressman Ed Schrock who voted vociferously anti-gay and whined about sharing showers with gays - even as he was seeking gay sex trysts.  There are many other examples, but the one who may soon join the list of men like Hastert and Schrock is Ohio GOP Congressman Jim Jordan. Each time Jordan disclaims any knowledge of the sexual abuse engaged in by his boss, Ohio State wrestling coach Richard Strauss, a new witness appears who disputes his denials.  Now, additional allegations are surfacing which hopefully will ultimately lead to Jordan being driven from office.  A piece in Politico looks at the mushrooming scandal.  Here are excerpts:

New allegations in the Ohio State University sexual abuse scandal are threatening to intensify the political firestorm facing its onetime assistant wrestling coach, powerful GOP Rep. Jim Jordan.

A half-dozen ex-wrestlers told POLITICO they were regularly harassed in their training facility by sexually aggressive men who attended the university or worked there. The voyeurs would masturbate while watching the wrestlers shower or sit in the sauna, or engage in sexual acts in the areas where the athletes trained, the former wrestlers said.

Larkins Hall, the building that housed athletic teams, became such a well-known target that people who frequented it at the time have reminisced in anonymous postings online how easy it was to ogle naked members of the wrestling team.

The situation was so egregious that former wrestling head coach Russ Hellickson would at times have to physically drag the gawkers out of the building, several sources familiar with his actions at the time said. Hellickson also pleaded with the university multiple times to move their athletes to a private facility, the sources said. Jordan served as Hellickson’s No. 2 . . . .

The accusations could exacerbate Jordan’s troubles. He was the wrestling team’s assistant coach from 1986 to 1994 and has adamantly denied knowledge of any sexual abuse. . . . they said he would have had to know about it. One former wrestler told POLITICO he saw Jordan yell at male voyeurs to get out of the sauna, though Jordan’s office refuted this account. Even three wrestlers who defended Jordan said it would have been impossible for him not to notice the pervasive toxic atmosphere surrounding the team.

“Coaching my athletes in Larkins Hall was one of the most difficult things I ever did,” said a former wrestling coach who worked with Jordan but asked not to be named. “It was a cesspool of deviancy. And that’s a whole ’nother story that no one has addressed.”

Multiple former wrestlers have accused Jordan, a National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee, of being among the faculty members who turned a blind eye to inappropriate behavior by the late Richard Strauss, the university’s former athletic doctor. Strauss allegedly preyed on male students during physicals, groping them to the point of making them ejaculate, according to one nurse who witnessed it and recounted the story in a video produced by alleged victims and obtained by POLITICO.

Ohio State has launched an investigation into Strauss’ behavior. Strauss worked at the university from 1978 to 1998. He killed himself in 2005.

Jordan has become the face of the controversy because of his current high profile as a leader of the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus. But the Ohio State scandal, which first came to light in April, goes well beyond him.

Now, Jordan is one of the most powerful members of the House and a potential candidate for speaker. . . . He is close with President Donald Trump, who expressed his support for the Ohio Republican on Thursday night.

The controversy will continue next week when Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess, and he is pressed by reporters for more information. . . . But Jordan’s denials have upset several of his former wrestlers, who want him to acknowledge what they felt as victims of sexual abuse.

Dunyasha Yetts, a former champion wrestler at the university, agreed that “sexual abuse” wasn’t used to describe what was occurring. But he accused Jordan of playing word games. Yetts said he was easily the most vocal person on the team to complain about Strauss and the Larkins Hall situation. Yetts claimed he not only told Jordan about Strauss’ behavior, but asked Jordan and Hellickson to confront the doctor with him.

At one point after being injured during his senior year, Yetts said he asked Jordan and Hellickson to come into Strauss’ examination room with him because he didn’t want to be fondled.

The Ohio State scandal — and talk of Jordan specifically — is tearing apart the university’s once tight-knit alumni wrestling network. Jordan’s former wrestlers are now warring publicly, with some accusing him of not doing enough to protect them and others coming to his defense.

DiSabato, however, is only one of several witnesses to have come forward. Even defenders of Jordan told POLITICO that the environment in Larkins Hall was abhorrent. Jordan used to work out with the students and use the sauna with them, even creating his own jocular “King of the Sauna” award at the end of the year for the wrestler who was best at trash talking his opponents and boasting of his successes post-practice. That’s why several wrestlers said it‘s implausible that Jordan didn’t see anything, despite his denials.

University spokesman Benjamin Johnson acknowledged in a statement that Ohio State is “aware of reports that individuals at the university did not respond appropriately during Richard Strauss’ time at Ohio State from 1978-1998” and said the school is investigating.

Again, I hope Jordan goes down. 

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan Implicated in College Sex-Abuse Scandal

Today's Republican Party is chock full of right wing nut cases and hypocrites of the highest order.  Among the more unhinged, in my view, is GOP Rep. Jim Jordan from Ohio who last eek  hysterically attack Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, accusing him without proof of threatening staffers. A column in the Washington Post described the reality free Jordan as follows: 

The sight of a calm, methodical deputy attorney general, patiently answering an unhinged inquisitor’s accusations (followed by interruptions so Rosenstein couldn’t answer), was bracing. Jordan is the perfect incarnation of the GOP in 2018 — unhinged, bullying, unbound by facts and unconcerned with the norms of democratic government. . . . Democratic House candidates might consider running the Jordan video in their ads.

On his congressional web page, Jordan boasts that  "I am committed to defending the sanctity of marriage and the family. . . . I oppose all attempts to redefine marriage, and I support the right of parents to supervise what their children learn and how they are educated."  Now, it would seem that Jordan in fact cares little about students as he tries to distance himself from a sex abuse scandal that witnesses are saying Jordan had to know about.  One, even has stated that he personally told Jordan of the abuse.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at Jordan's alleged role in the abuse scandal and his Sargent Schultz like attempts at denials and disclaimers.  Here are article highlights:

The horrific scandal involving Larry Nassar, the Michigan State University and U.S. Gymnastics team physician who was convicted of criminal sexual assault against athletes under his care, and was credibly accused of literally hundreds of acts of abuse, has made the risks of sexual misconduct by medical personnel at colleges a huge topic, especially in the Midwest. Those who knew or had reason to know of his misdeeds over the years have been held accountable . . . .

That makes the new allegations being made that prominent conservative U.S. representative Jim Jordan turned a blind eye to sexual abuse of athletes by a team doctor during his long tenure as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University especially explosive right now. 

NBC has the story: Rep. Jim Jordan, the powerful Republican congressman from Ohio, is being accused by former wrestlers he coached more than two decades ago at Ohio State University of failing to stop the team doctor from molesting them and other students.

Jordan, who was on the wrestling staff at OSU from 1986 to 1994, before his political career began, is denying that he knew anything about Strauss molesting his athletes.

His denials, however, have been met with skepticism and anger from some former members of the wrestling team.  Three former wrestlers told NBC News that it was common knowledge that Strauss showered regularly with the students and inappropriately touched them during appointments, and said it would have been impossible for Jordan to be unaware; one wrestler said he told Jordan directly about the abuse.

The ex-athletes . . . who spoke to NBC were unanimous in saying that he’s covering up what he knew . . . .

At least one of Strauss’s accusers claims that his misconduct went far beyond the wrestling team, as the Washington Post reports:  [Mike] DiSabato said he was first abused by Strauss at 14 as a high school wrestler. He said he believes Strauss abused 1,000-2,000 young athletes.

Jordan is a pretty big deal in the House these days, as a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a possible candidate for the speakership when Paul Ryan steps down at the end of this year. These accusations are the last thing he needs right now. And his prominence in conservative politics is already generating ferocious counterattacks from the, er, less inhibited precincts of the right-wing media . . . It takes some kind of self-confidence to hear of serious allegations of criminal misconduct that only indirectly involves one of your “team’s” politicians and immediately know for a fact that it’s a “deep state” conspiracy.

My personal thoughts?  Jordan is likely guilty of lying.  "Family values" only matter on the campaign trail when whipping Christofascists into a frenzy.