Rep. Jim Jordan Accused of Covering Up Dr. Richard Strauss’ Sexual Abuse at Ohio State Wrestling—OSU Settles for $41 Million
Six years after the Ohio State story first broke, and with Jordan now one of the most influential Republicans in Washington, the accusations aren’t going away.
November 25, 2026
This article was last updated by Alisha Shrestha on November 25, 2026
The Athens County Democratic Party, highlighting members Ginger Warneke Haddad and Karima Clark, made a sharp comparison between Republican Congressman Jim Jordan and the Jeffrey Epstein cover-up in a widely shared Facebook post.
What followed was a blunt accusation that has dogged Jordan for years.
During his time as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University from 1987 to 1995, Jordan allegedly knew that the team physician, Dr. Richard Strauss, was sexually abusing male athletes and students, and did nothing about it.
According to lawsuits and an independent investigation commissioned by the university itself, Strauss molested, harassed, or raped at least 177 young men under the guise of medical exams.
At least eight former wrestlers and one referee have publicly stated that Strauss’s inappropriate behavior was an open secret in the wrestling program, and that Jim Jordan, then a young assistant coach and later head coach, was well aware of the rumors and complaints.
Jordan has repeatedly and vehemently denied any knowledge of abuse, insisting that if he had heard anything credible, he would have reported it.
The fallout was massive.
Ohio State eventually paid out more than $60 million in total settlements (), apologized to victims, and acknowledged systemic failures that allowed Strauss to prey on students for nearly two decades.
Yet when investigators and the media came calling, Jordan refused to cooperate with some inquiries thoroughly and has dismissed many of the accusers’ claims as politically motivated.
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The post doesn’t stop at the scandal.
It hammers home the irony, or what critics call hypocrisy, that in January 2026, House Republicans rewarded Jordan by making him chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, the very panel that oversees federal law enforcement, civil rights, and (among other things) crimes against children.
To drive the point home, the Athens County post rattles off a long string of child-protection and victim-support bills that Jim Jordan voted against during his 18 years in Congress.
Some of the votes are on broadly popular measures, like reauthorizing children’s hospital funding or strengthening child-abuse prevention programs, while others are more partisan or narrowly targeted.
Critics argue the pattern reveals a politician who reflexively opposes almost anything that expands federal involvement, even when the bill’s title sounds uncontroversial.
Jordan and his defenders counter that many of these bills were bloated with unrelated spending, infringed on state authority, or were rushed through on suspension of the rules without proper debate.
Whatever the legislative fine print, the sheer length of the list, spanning 2007 all the way to 2026, makes for a brutal optic when placed next to allegations that he once turned a blind eye to a serial predator in a university locker room.
In the end, the Facebook blast is classic partisan warfare: take a years-old scandal that was never criminally proven against Jordan personally, pair it with a selective highlight reel of voting records, add a dash of Epstein-level outrage, and let the comment sections explode.
Jordan’s supporters call it a recycled smear from the left that voters have already rejected multiple times at the ballot box.
His detractors insist that the sheer volume of smoke means there must be a fire, and that putting someone with these clouds over his head in charge of the Judiciary Committee sends a chilling message.
Six years after the Ohio State story first broke, and with Jordan now one of the most influential Republicans in Washington, the accusations aren’t going away.
Whether they define his legacy or remain a permanent Democratic talking point is one of the sharper dividing lines in American politics today.
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