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Jim Jordan Moves To Intelligence Committee, Media Rehash Old, Dismissed Dirt

   DailyWire.com
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) talks to reporters before heading into a closed door hearing of the House Intelligence, Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees at the U.S. Capitol November 06, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was appointed to the House Intelligence committee this week, and coincidentally, the media made him the focal point of a story about sexual abuse at The Ohio State University.

The main point of the story is that Dr. Richard Strauss, now deceased, allegedly sexually abused dozens, if not hundreds, of athletes while he worked for OSU. On Thursday, more than 300 people filed 13 lawsuits against the university regarding Strauss’ abuse.

But the main story from NBC and other media outlets was that a professional referee said in the lawsuits that he directly told Jordan about Strauss’ behavior but that Jordan merely responded, “Yeah, that’s Strauss.” The referee alleged he told Jordan that Strauss masturbated in front of him in a shower after a wrestling match.

In May, OSU completed its year-long investigation into Strauss’ behavior and found that he abused at least 177 male students over the course of two decades. The investigation was led by law firm Perkins Coie (the same firm hired by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to pay Fusion GPS to dig up Russian dirt on Donald Trump in 2016), which could “not identify any other contemporaneous documentary evidence indicating that members of the O.S.U. coaching staff, including head coaches or assistant coaches, received or were aware of the complaints regarding Strauss sexual misconduct.”

It is unlikely the referee making the allegations in the lawsuit was not interviewed by OSU during its investigation.

After the report was released, Jordan claimed he was vindicated.

“I think the report speaks for itself,” Jordan told reporters at the time. “It confirmed everything I have said all along.”

The 232-page investigative report did find, however, that it “received allegations from numerous student-athletes indicating that they talked about Strauss’s inappropriate genital exams and complained about Strauss’s locker-room voyeurism directly to — or in front of — O.S.U. coaching staff.”

Twenty-two coaches interviewed by the investigators said they were “aware of rumors and/or complaints about Strauss,” while others said they were unaware.

Former OSU wrestler Dunyasha Yetts claimed he told Jordan directly about Strauss’ behavior. As The Daily Wire previously reported, Yetts had made similar sexual abuse allegations before. Another accuser, Michael DiSabato, had previous legal disputes with OSU before making allegations against Strauss. Strauss committed suicide in 2005.

After eight former wrestlers (many of whom were anonymous), 15 former wrestlers released statements defending Jordan, saying he was a great person or suggesting they had never seen or heard of Strauss’ abuse. Some said they were aware of the abuse, but Jordan was not.

The same thing happened to Jordan when he was rumored to be a candidate for House Speaker after Paul Ryan retired. As soon as Jordan’s name was floated for the position, the media began covering the sexual abuse allegations at OSU by focusing on Jordan’s role as an assistant coach.

Now that Jordan has been moved to the Intelligence committee, the media is focusing on allegations against him instead of the real story: That there was another college staff member involved with athletes who abused them. Unlike Larry Nassar or Jerry Sandusky, no Republican congressman could be tied to the allegations, so the story focused on their disgusting abuse.

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