Ohio Legislature wants to slap Rep. Jim Jordan with subpoena



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An Ohio lawmaker seeks to compel Republican Republican Jim Jordan to testify under oath to know he was aware of the fact that the wrestlers he coached at Ohio State University were victims of sexual abuse on the part of the team doctor.

State representative Tavia Galonski said she intended to ask the chair of the committee to appear before Jordan, who has repeatedly denied having knowledge of the matter. fact that Dr. Richard Strauss had been a victim of the athlete while he was the assistant wrestling coach from 1986 to 1994.

"What did you know and when did you know," said Galonski, when asked what she would ask Jordan, also from Ohio. "He has not been accused of anything criminal, but he has been accused of not acting, and I consider him a chance for him to erase his name."

Representative Tavia Galonski speaks in the House to support Bill 8, which will facilitate the training of caregivers in Ohio.House of Representatives of Ohio

An Akron Democrat, Galonski, surprised her Republican colleagues on Tuesday when she filed her first motion to appear before Jordan at a legislative hearing to discuss Bill 249, which would allow Strauss's victims to sue. sue the state of Ohio. The chair of the committee, Republican state representative Stephen Hambley, said his motion was out of order for procedural reasons.

Galonski said she was planning to try again at the committee meeting next week.

"Obviously, a summons to appear looks like salt. You use it sparingly, "said Galonski, a lawyer who served as a magistrate at Summit County's Common Pleas Court before being elected in 2017." But I do not think Congressman Jordan is going to would present alone. "

Galonski added that she had great respect for Hambley and that her quest to question Jordan was not motivated by partisan politics. She said she did not remember having ever met the congressman.

"It is our duty to the victims to ensure that the report is complete before voting on this bill," she said. "Are we doing real business here and should not we want a professional approach? (Jordan's name) was mentioned. The president is a very caring person. I think (Hambley) would support this kind of due process. "

NBC News contacted Hambley and Jordan's spokesman Ian Fury for an answer.

The Strauss Inquiry was launched 17 months ago after the denunciation by Mike DiSabato, a former OSU wrestler, who said he was a victim of Strauss. Hundreds more athletes came forward later.

The probe drew national attention in July 2018 when DiSabato and several other former wrestlers from the state of Ohio told NBC News that Jordan had turned a blind eye to what Strauss was doing.

Jordan insisted that he did not even hear a locker room talking about this abuse.

But an independent Perkins Coie law firm investigation concluded in May, based on "survivor accounts," that Ohio State coaches and administrators knew Strauss was assaulting male athletes and was not did not sound the alarm or stop it. The report did not specifically name coaches or administrators. He added that Strauss had mistreated at least 177 men between 1979 and 1997.

Jordan, via Fury, insisted that the report be absolute. He cites as evidence a line of the report which indicates that the investigators "did not identify any other documentary evidence indicating that the OSU coaching staff, including the head coaches or coaching assistants, had received or were aware of complaints about Strauss's sexual misconduct. "

Perkins Coie's investigators, however, indicated in the report that they relied heavily on "survivor accounts" which they corroborated as much as possible with "contemporaneous recordings" and interviews with staff members. l & # 39; university.

"With rare exceptions, we found that survivor stories about their experiences with Strauss were both highly credible and corroborating," the report says. "Many, if not most, of the men who contacted us did so with much hesitation."

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