Conservative writer on Jim Jordan: ‘It’s important not to hold people 20 years ago to the standards of today’

Conservative writer Bre Payton weighed in on the controversy surrounding Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and alleged sexual abuse of Ohio State wrestlers when Jordan was an assistant coach, saying that it is important not to hold people to today’s standards in regard to actions from over 20 years ago. 

“Now it’s 2018. The ‘Me Too’ movement has empowered a lot of victims of sexual assault to feel comfortable going forward and naming their accusers and going public, and that’s a really good thing that we should all applaud,” Payton, who writes for The Federalist, told Hill TV’s Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on “Rising.”

“I think it’s also important not to hold people 20 years ago to the standards of today, right? I think we have to look at these things in context. There’s a lot of unanswered questions about this. There’s a lot of details that still remain unanswered about Jim Jordan, what exactly he did, what exactly he didn’t know,” she continued. 

“So I think there’s a lot of information that we don’t have, and a lot of pieces of the puzzle that we don’t have.” 

Payton’s comments come after a seventh former Ohio State wrestler said on Saturday that Jordan was aware of alleged sexual abuse taking place on the wrestling team by athletic doctor Richard Strauss.

Jordan has denied having knowledge of the alleged abuse since former wrestlers first told NBC News in a report published last week that Jordan was aware of Strauss’s behavior at the time. 

— Julia Manchester