Top Trump defender Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is again facing nationally circulating accusations that he knew about sexual abuse perpetrated during his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University and did nothing. During testimony delivered before the Ohio state legislature during a hearing about a bill that would allow victims to sue the school for damages, former wrestler Adam DiSabato insisted that Jordan himself called him up just recently and begged him to deny allegations from Adam’s brother, Michael, who’d been among those to reveal Jordan’s alleged complicity. Now, during a weekend MSNBC appearance, Adam says in response to Jordan’s complaints that there’s even more evidence ready to come out.
Jordan’s alleged groveling for Adam DiSabato to deny his brother’s accusations unfolded on the Fourth of July. Asked this weekend for his response to the Congressman essentially dismissing him as a liar, he commented:
‘Well, in his statement, he didn’t say that he didn’t call me. I find that amusing, because, you know, he knows that he called me that day, and there’s proof and he doesn’t want to go there. So as far as the lie, I’ve already gone over this several times. I mean, it was blatant knowledge throughout our wrestling team, and there’s others that are going to come out on my behalf, and it’s just going to get worse… these people are delusional. And, you know, it’s all going to come out and Ohio State is going to get worse, because there’s other things that are going to come out. You know, they don’t want to go there.’
That’s pretty blunt.
Asked by host Joy Reid if there was “specific evidence that you have, or that you or others that were victims or connected to victims at Ohio State have, that Jordan himself knew about the abuse that was taking place,” he insisted that yes, there is.
He commented:
‘To keep denying it is just digging himself a bigger hole. If he would have just came out at the beginning and said, hey, you know, our superiors did nothing, then I wouldn’t be here right now. You think I want to be here?’
Watch:
Jordan’s camp has consistently and directly denied the allegations against him of complicity. For example, his spokesperson Ian Fury has claimed:
‘Congressman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had he would have dealt with it.’
That completely contradicts the testimony of former student after former student. Former university doctor Richard Strauss sexually abused at least 177 male students over a period of some nineteen years, including Jordan’s time at the college from 1986 to 1994.
As Adam’s brother Michael put it in some of the original testimony that the Congressman feverishly tried to get denied:
‘I considered Jim Jordan a friend. But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.’
Besides his rants about the supposed lies from former Ohio State students, Jordan has spent most of his time recently winding himself up in defense of Trump as the recently concluded impeachment proceedings raged on.
