Maine Democrat Standard-Bearer Loses Prestige In Epstein Scandal

By Ted Cohen Maine Wire

If twice begins a trend, put down embattled Maine political icon George J. Mitchell under the definition.

Long respected not only in Maine but on the international stage, Mitchell lost a second major notch of prestige Monday.

Queen’s University Belfast cut ties with Mitchell over his links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the second such institution to do so in just days.

The university has stripped Mitchell’s name from the Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and to remove the bust commemorating him from its campus, it said in ‍a statement.

The college said it was no longer appropriate to remain associated with the key figure in the Northern Ireland peace deal.

School officials said their ⁠decision followed new information on Mitchell released in the latest trove of millions of files linked to late convicted sex offender Epstein by the U.S. Justice Department last Friday.

“While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, the university has concluded that, in light ‍of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name,” ‌the university said.

BBC News cited a representative for 92-year-old Mitchell as saying he had never met, spoken to or had any contact with Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre or any underage women.

The British broadcaster said the statement was ‌issued before the university’s move.

Mitchell chaired the 1998 talks between Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland and pro-British unionists, which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement that largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict in which 3,600 died.

Separately, the non-profit U.S.-Ireland Alliance board decided Friday its George J. Mitchell Scholarship should no longer ‌bear his name, also citing the newly released Epstein files.

The program sends American students to Ireland and Northern Ireland for a year ‌of graduate study.

Since his birth in Waterville, Maine, Mitchell for 50 years has enjoyed the highest of respect across the state’s political variants.

For a guy who came from virtual poverty and illiteracy he excelled in spite of himself.

His father was an orphaned Irish immigrant who worked as a janitor and his mother a textile worker who had immigrated from Lebanon.

Mitchell was an altar boy who throughout junior high school and high school worked as a janitor.

He got into Bowdoin College, a top-notch school considered as elite as the Harvards and Browns in academic circles.

Mitchell then got a law degree from another of the highest-ranking schools, Georgetown University.

Though he was shaken to the core by his 1974 shocking gubernatorial loss he later became a federal judge and then a powerful United States senator who rose to the rank of majority leader.

Mitchell was the most charming and savviest of politicians anywhere, perhaps most notably as Senate leader convincing President George H.W. Bush to approve a national spending plan that some argue later prevented Bush from winning a second term as president.

The negotiator par excellence, Democrat Mitchell persuaded Republican Bush to abandon his famous “no new taxes” pledge, a move that alienated Bush from the conservative flank of his party angry that he had abandoned his campaign claim.

Bush agreed to a tax increase as part of the 1990 budget deficit reduction package that flew in the face of his 1988 “read my lips” promise.

Mitchell has had few political peers as polished and persuasive.