We have another former member of the Ohio State wrestling team who has come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and also said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) knew about it. So far, we have four former members of the school’s wrestling team who say then-assistant coach Jordan knew about the abuse by the team’s doctor, Dr. Richard Strauss. Strauss committed suicide in 2005. Jordan he denied allegations (through NBC News):
A fourth former Ohio State University wrestler came forward Thursday to deny claims by Rep. Jim Jordan that he had no idea the wrestling team doctor was molesting athletes.
Wrestler Shawn Dailey said that in the mid-1990s, when Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach, Dr. Richard Strauss groped him half a dozen times. Dailey said he was too embarrassed to report the abuse directly to Jordan, but said Jordan participated in conversations in which Strauss abused numerous other team members.
“I attended with Jimmy [Jordan] and the other wrestlers in the locker room talking about Strauss. We all did,” Dailey, 43, told NBC News. “It was common knowledge in the locker room that if you went to Dr. Strauss for anything, you had to drop your pants.”
Dailey spoke out two days after NBC News reported that three former wrestlers Jordan trained more than two decades ago accused the GOP congressman of turning a blind eye to alleged abuse by Strauss and then lying about it. Jordan has denied knowing anything about the abuse and continues to do so.
Several of them reported clashes with law enforcement. NBC News and Columbus Dispatch raised legal issues for two other accusers. Dunyasha Yetts served 18 months in prison for fraud. Mike DiSabato sold OSU equipment and lost the school’s contract to sell its merchandise. There was also a legal battle over licensing. Will Jordan survive, even with the denials?
We are in a Me Too moment. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) were thrown out of Congress over past allegations of sexual harassment. Jordan was not accused of wrongdoing, but supposedly knowing and doing nothing would be considered just as bad. Now we have four articles that note that. The media coverage against Conyers and Franken was relentless, coupled with pressure from the Democratic Party—they had to go. Much of that was political maneuvering. Democrats were unable to effectively attack Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate special election without Conyers and Franken showing up; Moore had allegations of sexual harassment in the past. It also came at a time when some liberal feminists were wondering if they were wrong to give Bill Clinton a pass during his presidency.
The gutting of Conyers and Franken was political. We don’t have that with Jordan. There are no photos of him pretending to grope a sleeping woman, as we did with Franken. And I think it’s protected to assume that Democrats wouldn’t have pressured him if there weren’t a winnable special election south of the Mason-Dixon line with a lousy Republican.
Still, there aren’t many accounts of people who say Jordan himself acted inappropriately. The accusation that Jordan knew about the abuse of members of the wrestling team as an assistant coach and did nothing about it while at OSU from 1986-1994 still doesn’t sit well. Yes, there’s no special election, but Jordan is a conservative Republican. Any such accusation is blood in the water for Democrats and the liberal news media. We’ll see if he can stay afloat, but you can bet the left will try to push as tough as they can to get him to go. Jordan is tough, but we’ll see what happens.
