Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the Republican Party\u2019s top inquisitors in Congress, is expected to be deposed Friday about allegations that he failed to protect the wrestlers he once coached at Ohio State University from a sexual predator, four plaintiffs in lawsuits against the university told NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jordan, who was the assistant wrestling coach at the university from 1986 to 1994 before he got into politics, has repeatedly and publicly denied any knowledge that the team\u2019s doctor, Richard Strauss, was preying on the athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will be the first time Jordan has be questioned under oath by lawyers representing hundreds of former OSU students, both athletes and nonathletes, who are suing the school for damages in federal court in the Southern District of Ohio. Jordan is not a defendant, but he is referred to in some of the lawsuits alleging he was aware of the abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jordan, the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, is known for his combative questioning of witnesses and for avoiding suit jackets during it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reached for comment, Jordan spokesperson Russell Dye released a variation of the statement Jordan\u2019s team has been using since July 2018, when three former OSU wrestlers\u2002told NBC News<\/a> that Jordan was lying when he claimed he did not know that Strauss molested them under the guise of giving physical examinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs everyone knows, Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mike DiSabato, who wrestled for Jordan and was the first former OSU student who publicly accused him of\u2002having turned a blind eye<\/a> to the abuse Strauss inflicted on him and his teammates, said he does not expect Jordan to say any more than he already has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI assume he\u2019s going to triple down and follow the same script he followed back in 2018 when he went on Fox and denied knowing about any abuse, denied being told of any abuse, never heard the word \u2018abuse,\u2019\u201d DiSabato said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DiSabato was referring to\u2002an interview with Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier<\/a> in which Jordan also insisted that he did not hear any\u2002locker room banter<\/a> about Strauss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, said DiSabato, who previously reached a settlement with OSU, he hopes Jordan \u201cwill finally come out and admit that he knew Strauss was doing unnecessary prostate exams, doing unnecessary genital exams, taking multiple showers with athletes, all while being employed by a university funded by the state of Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jordan will sit down for a deposition about a month after the release of an HBO Max documentary about the Strauss scandal called \u201cSurviving Ohio State<\/a>,\u201d in which one of the wrestlers he once coached flat-out called him a liar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another Strauss survivor, Steve Snyder-Hill, said he will watch the deposition Friday at his lawyer\u2019s office in Columbus. While he is not a former athlete, Snyder-Hill is one of the former OSU students suing the university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI expect him to lie under oath,\u201d Snyder-Hill said. \u201cI don\u2019t know a nicer way to put it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Snyder-Hill said Strauss abused him at a campus clinic in 1995. He said that what the doctor was alleged to have been doing to young men under the guise of giving physical examinations eventually became an open secret throughout campus, extending beyond the athletes\u2019 locker rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJordan had a locker two down from Strauss, and Jordan claims he didn\u2019t know?\u201d Snyder-Hill said. \u201cThat\u2019s hard to believe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strauss, who died in 2005, worked at OSU from 1978 through 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prompted by allegations from DiSabato and other former OSU wrestlers, the university agreed to\u2002an independent investigation<\/a> by the Perkins Coie law firm, which concluded in 2019 that\u2002coaches and athletic administrators<\/a> knew for two decades that Strauss was molesting male athletes and other students but failed to sound the alarm or stop him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jordan\u2019s former communications director, Ian Fury, insisted in 2019 that the report absolved Jordan.\u2002All of the coaches and administrators\u2019 names were redacted<\/a> in the version of the report released to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fury cited as proof a line in the report that said investigators \u201cdid not identify any other contemporaneous documentary evidence indicating that members of the OSU coaching staff, including head coaches or assistant coaches, received or were aware of complaints regarding Strauss\u2019 sexual misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the release of the report, OSU has said it has paid out\u2002$60 million in settlement money<\/a> and its former president has publicly apologized \u201cto each person who endured\u201d abuse at the hands of Strauss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several of the lawsuits mention Jordan by name<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still facing at least five active lawsuits from 236 men alleging Strauss molested them, too, OSU, which had apologized to Strauss\u2019 victims and had reported in 2019 that Strauss committed 1,429 sexual assaults and 47 rapes<\/a>, walked back its previous position in October 2023 and\u2002denied having admitted any wrongdoing<\/a>. The settlements it paid out were without admission of liability and were reached through mediation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n OSU also argued that\u2002the statute of limitations<\/a> in the case against it had run out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in June 2023,\u2002the Supreme Court refused<\/a> to reconsider a\u2002lower court ruling<\/a> that said former students should be allowed to sue OSU, paving the way for their lawyers to question Jordan and other OSU employees about Strauss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n