Once dismissed as an “a**hole” by former Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Congressional rep Jim Jordan became one of the loudest defenders of Donald Trump during impeachment hearings over the past two weeks. But his frequent shouting at, and interrupting witnesses has not gone over well with a major newspaper in his home state, The Cleveland Plain Dealer .
The paper published a scathing op-ed this week, describing Jordan’s life’s work as to “besmirch everything America stands for in service of Donald Trump.”
Penned by former, longtime Plain Dealer Editorial Director Brent Larkin, the op-ed slammed Jordan as “the most unfit man” ever to represent portions of the greater Cleveland area in Congress. Larkin also states that Jordan was “imposed” on Ohio by a “hideously gerrymandered” district that “meanders” over a 200-mile stretch from just north of Dayton, Ohio, to an area south of Cleveland.
The op-ed also notes that Jordan is currently embroiled in a major sexual abuse scandal. When Jordan — a former two-time NCAA Division 1 wrestling champion — was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, he allegedly knew about but ignored repeated instances of sexual abuse against student-athletes by a team doctor, Dr. Richard Strauss.
Jordan has denied that he was aware of the sexual misconduct by Strauss, who is accused of more than 1,400 sexual assaults including 47 rapes of Ohio State students who were his patients. The disgraced doctor committed suicide in 2005.
In the Plain Dealer op-ed, Larkin said that Jordan starts his day when he “slithers out from under his rock each morning, dons a shirt and tie — sans the jacket, lest he be mistaken for Joe McCarthy.”
Appearing in shirtsleeves, without a jacket, at congressional hearings has become a Jordan signature.
Jordan was added to the House Intelligence Committee by Republican House leadership on November 8, just days before the first televised impeachment hearings, expressly to “bolster President Donald Trump’s defense,” according to a Politico report.
He has proceeded to carry out that mission with loud harangues of witnesses. On Thursday, November 19, Jordan strongly suggested that witness David Holmes, a political counselor at the United States embassy in Ukraine, fabricated his account of a potentially incriminating phone call between Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
David Holmes’s eye roll at Gym Jordan’s bloviating is all of us pic.twitter.com/4s3Ic8OwFN
— ???? ? (@MrErikJackson) November 21, 2019
Holmes reacted with a pronounced roll of his eyes, as The Hill reported. Video of the moment quickly went viral on social media.
Condemning Jordan as “the second most contemptible human being” in the entire U.S. government, Larkin describes the seven-term member of Congress as “the ideal bootlicker” for Trump.
