For years, scandal has surrounded Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who has yet to fully explain why when he was an assistant coach on the Ohio State University wrestling team in the mid-1990s he failed to report that sexual abuse of young athletes was being committed by the team doctor, Richard Strauss. Strauss killed himself in 2005 and is believed to have abused at least 177 students from 1979 to 1996.
And now Jordan is at the center of yet another scandal, and this one could well cost him his political career and result in him being charged with crimes against the United States for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
One of Jordan’s colleagues, Rep. Eric Swalwell, says there’s a connection between the Ohio Republican’s actions at Ohio State and his alleged coordination with members of the Trump administration who attempted to orchestrate a coup on the 6th of January.
During an appearance on MSNBC, Swalwell noted:
“I’m not a Harvard lawyer. But the way that he has talked about his involvement certainly makes him look — the way that he is now moonwalk-ing away from responsibilities as to why — probably makes him complicit. This is an incident of workplace violence. Let us just step back. In any workplace — if this has happened. If you worked with contact with someone who is responsible for the workplace violence. If you did nothing wrong and you had nothing to do with it. You would raise your hand and say, let me help make this safer.”
Swalwell then added that Jordan’s refusal to speak to the House 1/6 Select Committee without being subpoenaed is the same sort of thing he did at Ohio State:
“The fact that he does not want to cooperate, I think, puts him in the category of the people who had some knowledge of what Trump wanted to do. And, by the way, Lawrence, this guy has priors. This is not the first time he has been accused of witnessing a crime and not wanting to report it or help investigators.”
Jim Jordan allegedly enabled the actions of sexual predator even though he could have reported what he knew and protected other students. And now he’s an enabler of a plot to overthrow the elected government of the United States. Both are disgusting and abhorrent, and it’s time that Jordan paid for his refusal to speak when others were in danger.
