Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine is facing an international reckoning after the latest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files released by the federal government named the long-revered Democrat nearly 300 times.
In the wake of the latest document dump, Mitchell’s name has been removed from a scholarship program by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance, his bust was removed from a college campus in Northern Ireland, and he resigned as the honorary chairman of the Mitchell Institute, a Maine educational program that is now considering renaming itself.
As one of the most powerful political figures to ever emerge from Maine, his name still graces a variety of Maine institutions, including an elementary school in his hometown of Waterville, a sustainability center at the University of Maine and a public park in Harpswell.
So far, none of these institutions have joined the Mitchell Institute. Harpswell Town Administrator Kristi Eiane said that there have not been any official discussions about renaming the George J. Mitchell Field along Casco Bay. School officials in Waterville and a spokesperson for the University of Maine System did not respond to Friday requests for comment.
Two of Mitchell’s successors in the Senate, Republican Susan Collins and independent Sen. Angus King, have sponsored bills that would rename an Acadia National Park visitor center after Mitchell, who has a home in nearby Seal Harbor. Spokespeople for Collins and King did not answer Friday questions about whether they think it should still be named for him.
Mitchell and Epstein were friends for years. Epstein called the Maine politician the world’s greatest negotiator in a 2003 magazine profile, the same year that Mitchell wrote Epstein a letter calling their friendship a “blessing.”
Since 2019, Mitchell has maintained he has never met Virginia Giuffre, the woman who said she was trafficked to him by Epstein in documents that were unsealed that year. He also has said that he cut off contact with the disgraced financier after Epstein’s Florida conviction on sex offenses in 2008.
The recently released tranche shows Epstein tried to schedule meetings with Mitchell in the years after that. There is also an FBI document that appears to contain allegations from a second woman alleging she was trafficked to Mitchell. A Mitchell spokesperson reiterated earlier denials in a Sunday statement, saying he never had sex with any underage girls.
“Senator Mitchell profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women,” the statement said.
Mitchell, who is now 92, entered treatment for leukemia in 2020. He has maintained a high profile at times, returning to Northern Ireland in 2023 on a much-publicized trip to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the peace deal he has long been celebrated for negotiating.
The second wave of Epstein links has been more damaging to his reputation than the first in 2019, when the Waterville superintendent at the time quickly answered a reporter’s email about whether the district was considering the school’s name.
“[In] this country people are presumed innocent until proven guilty….allegations are just that, allegations,” he wrote. “Have a good day.”
BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.