Lawsuit: Jim Jordan Knew About Sexual Abuse At OSU

Here we go again.  Ohio Republican Rep. Jim "Gym" Jordan, leading member of the House crackpot caucus and mindless defender of crime family boss Donald "The Dumb Don" Trump, has been named in a new lawsuit as having known about the sexual abuses of Dr. Richard Strauss while Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University:

A professional referee says in a lawsuit filed Thursday that disgraced doctor Richard Strauss masturbated in front of him in a shower after a wrestling match at Ohio State University, and he reported the encounter directly to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who was then the assistant coach.

“Yeah, that’s Strauss,” Jordan and then-head coach Russ Hellickson replied, according to the lawsuit, when the referee, identified in court papers as John Doe 42, told them about the incident. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Ohio, implies that Jordan's response to the incident, which the referee said happened in 1994, was essentially a shrug.

John Doe 42 is the second person to say he told Jordan directly about either being approached or molested by Strauss, who was found by independent investigators to have sexually abused 177 male students over two decades. [snip]

John Doe 42 said that when he informed Jordan and Hellickson about what happened, their response was, “Yeah, yeah, we know.”

“It was common knowledge what Strauss was doing so the attitude was it is what it is,” he told NBC News. “I wish Jim, and Russ, too, would stand up and do the right thing and admit they knew what Strauss was doing, because everybody knew what he was doing to the wrestlers. What was a shock to me is that Strauss tried to do that to me. He was breaking new ground by going after a ref.”  [snip]

Other former Ohio State wrestlers have said Jordan had to know about Strauss because he shared a locker room with them and took part in discussions about the doctor, who died in 2005.  [snip]

An investigation commissioned by the university and conducted by the Perkins Coie law firm found that what Strauss was doing was an “open secret” and that the coaches and administrators at Ohio State knew for two decades that the doctor was abusing students but failed to stop him, according to a report released in May.  (our emphasis)

Asking a soulless weasel like Gym to "do the right thing" is about as likely as Gym leading the crackpot caucus to denounce Trump for his impeachable offenses.   It's hardly a question at this point whether Gym is lying about his knowledge of Strauss's on- going abuses;  he most certainly is, given the earlier testimony of a number of credible witnesses.  No wonder he's comfortable with the serial sexual predator in the White (Supremacist) House, and why House Republican leadership is putting him on the Intelligence (oxymoron alert) Committee to be Trump's attack dog in the impeachment hearings.

(An aside:  who knew Gym's spokesperson is named Ian Fury?!  Is he a former WWF rassler?)

(Photo:  Gym shaking hands with The Dumb Don;  we suggest they both wash their hands thoroughly -- or not.)