CNN this week hosted William Knight, one of the former wrestlers from Ohio State University who has called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for refusing to acknowledge in a more substantial manner the sexual abuse perpetrated by a team doctor while Jordan coached at the school, something of which affected individuals have insisted Jordan was clearly aware.
Startlingly, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who continues to hold a party leadership role among House Republicans, pointed to Jordan’s time in wrestling in promoting on the House floor this week Jordan’s faltering attempts to become Speaker. He ended up losing the first floor vote held on Tuesday, with further voting slated for the following day. Meanwhile, Jordan also remains of interest to former student wrestlers seeking accountability for the sexual abuse they suffered from a now deceased perpetrator. One such individual involved in litigation already shared an intention to get a deposition of Jordan.
“The funny thing is that when people always call Jim Jordan a fighter, and I always wonder who he’s fighting for, because he had a real opportunity to fight for us and the people that he coached and the people that he recruited at the Ohio State, and all he’s done is just turn his back on us, so I don’t know what the fighter thing is,” Knight said. “I know he used to be a fighter, I know he used to be a good wrestler, but he’s not a good fighter for anyone else that I know of.”
Knight characterized the Jordan he sees today as not the same sort of individual with whom he was familiar while actually at the Midwestern university, describing the Ohioan now as promoting division. Jordan and his team continue to insist he didn’t know about what was happening at the school. Other points of concern as Jordan has sought the Speaker’s role have included his promotion of 2020 election conspiracy theories and the fact that he’s never actually seen a bill he created get fully approved in the House and Senate and made law. He focuses largely on partisan investigative exercises. You can see the interview with Knight at this link, from Mediaite.
