At age 92, revered stateman George Mitchell faces fallout over Epstein association

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/us/epstein-george-mitchell-ireland-maine.html

A Once Prominent American Statesman Faces Fallout From the Epstein Files
George Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader credited with bringing peace to Northern Ireland, is under renewed scrutiny over his association with Jeffrey Epstein.

For years, the American statesman George J. Mitchell has been revered in Northern Ireland for negotiating a peace agreement that brought an end to the decades-long Troubles there.

But following the release last month of millions of files by the Justice Department, Mr. Mitchell, a former Senate majority leader, has faced a reckoning for his long association with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex offender who died in jail in 2019.

In Northern Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast took down a bronze bust of his likeness. And, separately, the US-Ireland Alliance, a nonprofit that administered a prestigious exchange scholarship in his name, announced that it would be calling the award something else.

The fallout has spread to the United States. In his native Maine, a scholarship program named for Mr. Mitchell, now 92, is considering a name change, and in Waterville, where Mr. Mitchell was born, parents of students at George Mitchell Elementary School have called for the building to be rebranded.


A spokesman for Mr. Mitchell, who has been in declining health in recent years, said on Thursday that Mr. Mitchell denied any knowledge of inappropriate behavior by Mr. Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing underage victims and was convicted of sex crimes in Florida in 2008.