Powerful Reading of Original Documents.

Sportswriter Sally Jenkins, working her beat at the WaPo, plows through the documents posted on the Ohio State University website that prove damning to Urban Meyer's claims of denial.

For years, men like this -- this one named for a Pope even -- have used their connections to escape accountability and/or justice.  But the documents remain, and if you can read, you can understand what is happening...

It’s worth taking the time to reread the full report by outside investigator Mary Jo White and her team from the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. The report has been derided as a whitewash that enabled Ohio State to give Meyer a slap-on-the-wrist three-game suspension. But despite its soft conclusion, it’s actually an interesting document that contains very blunt assessments of Meyer’s two-faced conduct, as well as of state university employees’ failure to comply with public document requests and fully cooperate with the investigation.

“We attempted to, but were unable to retrieve text messages for certain witnesses,” the report states, “including AD Smith, Brian Voltolini, Chief of Football Operations, and Zach Smith.”

Think about that: Investigators could not access relevant records from Ohio State’s athletic director, head coach, chief of football operations or the assistant coach at the center of the scandal. To a man, they are paid by state money. And subject to public records laws.

To tell the truth, you need not be the biggest man, or have a powerful father or grandfather.  To win the game of  truth-telling, you need not be the best-paid person or the highest man in the hierarchy.

You just have to keep digging for the documents and communications -- they are always out there -- that expose the truth for what it is.   Urban Meyer might only be penalized with a three-game suspension, but for everyone who wants to know who he is as a man in full, it is now all out there in the open...

Read for yourself and cringe at Meyer’s email exchanges once the news erupted July 23 that he had sheltered and prospered an addled, reckless assistant who was under a domestic violence protective order. After firing Smith, Meyer started head ducking and shoulder-curling like a garden snail. “Zero conversation about Zach’s past issues,” he directed his staff.

By then Meyer was apparently more worried with establishing his deniability. Within a week, he was discussing how to cleanse old text messages from his cellphone.

 Because of cost-cutting measures -- and perhaps because he didn't fill diversity demands of todays' marketplace -- Brett McMurphy had been let go at ESPN before he broke the news of Urban Meyer's lying at a press conference that he had no previous knowledge of Zach Smith's domestic abuse before he fired his well-connected assistant coach.

But McMurphy got the story, and the documents back up what he had written.  No private jet planes, no golf membership, hell -- no ESPN paycheck anymore either -- but McMurphy has something in his pocket today much more valuable ... the knowledge that he learned the truth, and spoke the truth to all who were willing to read and listen...*

You tell me who is the bigger man today.

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ADDED:  Do you see parallels here between Ohio State's refusal to turn over relevant records to investigators, and those stonewalling Congress by refusing to fully release all of the documents requested about Brett Kavanaugh's previous work in the George W. Bush administration?  I do.

“At Ohio State, we hold public records in trust for the people we serve,” the website states. “Providing prompt access to the public records we create and receive in the course of our work is a fundamental compliance responsibility.”

So why haven’t Ohio State’s president and board of trustees deman ded that compliance — and shouldn’t the faculty be irate?

It’s an easy matter for a good, serious investigator to crack down on that flouting and retrieve those communications. They belong to the state. A state official should say to Meyer and the rest of his human shields, “How about you start giving us straight and timely answers or next month’s payroll won’t clear?”

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* I'm alright because, despite the laws, 
you cannot hide the truth...

And although you will say I am still too naive
well I have not lost faith in the things I believe...

And if I don't have this all worked out,
still I'm getting closer, getting close...
I still have far to go, no doubt, but I'm
getting closer... getting close!
~ Billy Joel.