Possible sex abuse at Ohio State

One of the curious dimensions of the evolving Jim Jordan story is that the defenses of Jordan often become close to indistinguishable from the accusations against him. The first instance was that interlude in Jordan’s interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier in which he switched from adamant denials to making a distinction between formal accusations and “conversations in a locker room.” When Baier asked what “locker room” talk he’d heard, Jordan shifted back and insisted he hadn’t heard any. Now there’s another instance of this, an admission that essentially demolishes Jordan’s denials. The head coach Jordan worked for, Russ Hellickson, admits he knew Dr. Strauss was acting inappropriately with wrestlers on his team and confronted him about it.

To be clear, head coach Hellickson is not one of Jordan’s accusers. He’s one of Jordan’s biggest defenders. He has repeatedly defended Jordan and signed the open letter assembled by the right-wing PR firm which an anonymous funder has retained to attack Jordan’s accusers. “None of us saw or heard of abuse of OSU wrestlers,” one portion of the letter reads. “The well-being of student-athletes was all of our concern. If we had heard of any abuse, we would have spoken up.”

But Hellickson has a problem.

Before Jordan’s involvement in the story broke on July 3rd, one of Jordan’s accusers, Mike DiSabato interviewed Hellickson on videotape. The video has not been publicly released but it’s been shown to multiple news outlets, including CNN and USAToday. On that tape, Hellickson admits to precisely what Jordan is vociferously denying.

Click to expand...

Jon said:

now it is 9 plus Jordan's boss at the time and head coach

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/jordans-boss-the-head-coach-admits-he-knew

Click to expand...

Jon said:

now it is 9 plus Jordan's boss at the time and head coach

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/jordans-boss-the-head-coach-admits-he-knew

Click to expand...

CharminTide said:

The current GOP simply can't be trusted with your children. They rip infants from their parents, strip away their healthcare, grab your daughters by their vaginas, and grope your sons. Then they'll lie about it all, claim the other side is worse, and raise the spectre of abortion to hoodwink simpleminded Republican voters into thinking they actually care about the well-being of children. Rinse and repeat.

Click to expand...

92tide said:

iirc, the gop rallied around mark foley and denny hastert for a while.

Click to expand...

CharminTide said:

The current GOP simply can't be trusted with your children. They rip infants from their parents, strip away their healthcare, grab your daughters by their vaginas, and grope your sons. Then they'll lie about it all, claim the other side is worse, and raise the spectre of abortion to hoodwink simpleminded Republican voters into thinking they actually care about the well-being of children. Rinse and repeat.

Click to expand...

Jon said:

you guys know of course that this is all a deep state plot against Jordan right?

Click to expand...

MattinBama said:

I'm sure the posters from page 1 will be back shortly to let us know that this is still just a hit job witch hunt.

Click to expand...

B1GTide said:

I don't know any more about this than you guys. The good news is that everyone involved is either dead or is no longer associated with OSU. But the decision to go after Jordan right now is typical political garbage. Did he know? How could we possibly know for Sure? But he will be judged. That's the world we live in today.

Click to expand...

Crimson1967 said:

I don’t think this is a political hit job, but the timing of it coming out is a little interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Jon said:

I agree on the timing. It is a little bit too convenient. But that in no way absolves Jordan of his culpability nor of his lies

Click to expand...

Jon said:

I agree on the timing. It is a little bit too convenient.

Click to expand...

Jon said:

But that in no way absolves Jordan of his culpability nor of his lies

Click to expand...

Crimson1967 said:

I don’t think this is a political hit job, but the timing of it coming out is a little interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Jon said:

I agree on the timing. It is a little bit too convenient. But that in no way absolves Jordan of his culpability nor of his lies

Click to expand...

April 5—It started when one former college wrestler, Mike DiSabato, claimed he and other student wrestlers were sexually abused by a university sports physician, Dr. Richard Strauss, who died in 2005. DiSabato said he was inspired by the former gymnasts at Michigan State who spoke out about their abuse.

Click to expand...

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 don’t seem to have any particular bone, political or otherwise, to pick with Jordan, and mostly said they were fond of him. But the ones who spoke to NBC were unanimous in saying that he’s covering up what he knew:

“I love Jimmy to death,” [one] ex-wrestler said. “It was a head-scratcher to me why he would say he didn’t know anything. Doc used to take showers with the team even though he didn’t do any workouts, and everybody used to snicker about how you go into his office for a sore shoulder and he tells you to take your pants down.”

Click to expand...

MattinBama said:

https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/201...-rep-jim-jordan-know/?slreturn=20180613102958




The investigation started in April and was begun by OSU. Unless the opinion is that OSU itself is creating the political hit job then the timing is only suspect because Jim Jordan chose to to use his stupidity and deny that he knew anything about it which caused multiple people that knew he knew about it to decide to come forward with "why are you lying about this?" type statements.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...-implicated-in-college-sex-abuse-scandal.html

Click to expand...

Jon said:

thanks for that. I admit, I didn't look at the timeline at all

Click to expand...

MattinBama said:

With all the timing comments and having seen that someone went to Jordan earlier in the investigation I got curious and decided to look it up.

Click to expand...

The congressman managed to contain the fallout from an eerily similar revelation last November, when one of his longtime Washington aides and protégées, Ohio state Rep. Wesley Goodman, was publicly unmasked as one of the capitol city’s most notorious sexual predators during his six years working for Jordan, stalking and abusing at least 30 young conservative men he promised to “mentor.” This was huge news in Ohio, but was buried nationally beneath the daily drumbeat of Trump atrocities.

The Goodman scandal alone could have been enough to force Jordan out of Congress. In April, Elizabeth Esty, a Democratic representative from Connecticut, had to resign because she kept a former chief of staff on her payroll for three months after another former aide accused him of harassment. The well-documented accusations against Goodman are much, much broader. While working for Jordan for six years, Goodman reportedly harassed or assaulted at least 30 young men. Jordan adamantly denied that he had any knowledge of Goodman’s notorious reputation – just as he’s now claiming, against the word of his ex-wrestlers, that he had no clue that Strauss (who committed suicide in 2005) was groping the athletes.

Click to expand...