‘His life’s work is to besmirch everything America stands for’: Cleveland journalist slams Jim Jordan as a disgrace to Ohio

During the impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump, one of the president’s most obnoxious and buffoonish defenders in Congress has been Rep. Jim Jordan. The 55-year-old Republican and Tea Party favorite has been serving in the U.S. House of Representatives via Ohio since January 2007, but that doesn’t mean he is universally loved in the Buckeye State — and Cleveland-based journalist Brent Larkin, in a blistering op-ed for Cleveland.com, explains why some Ohio residents hold Jordan in such low regard.

“It’s fitting that Republicans have given this seven-term sycophant a starring role in the televised House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump,” Larkin declares. “The assignment comes as Jordan is being credibly accused by some of knowingly turning a blind eye to sexual abuse by a team doctor when Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University from 1987-1994.”

The far-right Jordan has been involved in Ohio politics since the mid-1990s. After serving in the Ohio State Legislature in the 1990s and 2000s — first the Ohio House of Representatives, then the Ohio Senate — Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006. Although the 2006 midterms saw a backlash against President George W. Bush and Democrats recaptured both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate that year, Jordan was among the GOP victories.

Ohio’s 4^th Congressional District, which Jordan represents, includes some of the Cleveland suburbs but zigzags across the state into some rural areas and areas near the Indiana border. Larkin notes that Jordan’s district has been “hideously gerrymandered” and, in its present form, “meanders some 200 miles from near Dayton north into Lorain County near Cleveland.”

Jordan’s relentless defense of Trump and willingness to disparage diplomats and military heroes in the impeachment hearings, Larkin stresses, underscore his total lack of integrity.

“When Jordan slithers out from under his rock each morning, dons a shirt and tie — sans the jacket, lest he be mistaken for Joe McCarthy — his life’s work is to besmirch everything America stands for in service of Donald Trump,” Larkin asserts. “If it takes undermining yet another principle of democracy by condoning attacks on men and women who have devoted their lives in honorable service to this country, Jordan is always ready and willing.”

Larkin has a long history of covering politics in Ohio, where he served as editorial director of the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 1991-2009. And Larkin asserts that Jordan, who he describes as the “ideal bootlicker” for Trump, is among the sleaziest figures in Ohio politics in recent decades.

“Everything about Jordan reeks of a man willing to cast aside common decency and fairness in service of a corrupt and cruel president,” Larkin writes. “He may be the most unfit man to ever represent part of Greater Cleveland in Congress.”