Shamed Name
George Mitchell's toxic friendship with Epstein has tainted the former Maine senator's legacy.
This morning I got to wondering about George Mitchell and the Epstein Files. After all, the former Maine senator and world-famous peace negotiator was named in a 2016 deposition by Virginia Giuffre as one of the rich and powerful men she was trafficked to — by Jeffrey Epstein — back when Giuffre was a 17 year-old girl.
With the massive release of more Epstein filth, I googled to see if Mitchell, the now 92-year-old Waterville native, appeared in any new documents. That’s when I discovered the freshly-posted press release from the US-Ireland Alliance announcing the removal of Mitchell’s name (misspelled) from the prestigious “George J. Mitchell Scholarship Program.”
The reason?
“The decision was made due to new information that has come to light as part of the release of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein by the Department of Justice on Friday,” according to Trina Vargo, president of US-Ireland Alliance.
I don’t have the time or energy to do a deep dive on the former senator’s alleged perversions, but the US-Ireland Alliance’s decision reenforces my theory on the folly of naming buildings, institutions, boats, et al, after living humans.
(A similar problem was discussed in Episode 14 of my Unholy Fathers podcast in connection to the renaming of a hospital in Springfield, Mass after the Catholic diocese found credible an allegation of child rape against Bishop Christopher Weldon, who also protected dozens of pedo-priests and the child murderer Richard Lavigne.)
For the record, Mitchell denies ever meeting Virginia Giuffre, but there’s no denying he and Epstein were buddies. In an October 2002 New York Magazine story entitled “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery,” the former Maine senator is quoted as saying, “I would certainly call [Epstein] a friend and a supporter.”
Mitchell’s words and signature are also found in the infamous “Birthday Book” compiled for Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell. While I don’t wanna dissect the hard-to-read copy of the letter, the P.S. Mitchell added is illuminating. “As you know,” Mitchell wrote, “Heather [Mitchell’s wife] shares your birthday, confirming my belief that a lot of great people were born on January 20th.”
Which got me thinking… what other things need re-naming in light of Mitchell’s bromance with Epstein?
First on this list, the Waterville school board will need to ponder the name of the “George J. Mitchell School” on Drummond Ave in the former senator’s hometown. The school — named after him in 1995 — teaches students from kindergarten through third grade. Which makes his name above the door seem icky.
A bigger conundrum, it would seem, is the name of the “Mitchell Institute,” the organization he founded in 1999 with big money assistance from the Harold Alfond Foundation. As far as I know, the Mitchell Institute does good work. Such as the aforementioned and now-un-named “George J. Mitchell Scholarship Program” which pays for American scholars to attend a year of college in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Also laudatory are the Mitchell Institute’s programs that helps many Maine kids attend college, including annual $10k scholarships presented to one college-bound senior from every public Maine high school. According to their website, the non-profit has awarded over $25 million since 1995 in “scholarship, fellowship and contingency funds to more than 3,600 scholars and alumni who hail from every community in Maine.”
(The non-profit, btw, according to IRS documents, currently has about $48,222,963 in the bank and in assets.)
Meanwhile, over at UMaine, the “Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions” is still part of the Orono campus community. I recommend an op-ed published in Feb. 2022 in The Maine Campus by Nicolas Tiner, entitled “UMaine is no place for Epstein accomplices: Rename the Mitchell Center.”
And down in Brunswick, at Mitchell’s alma mater of Bowdoin College, perhaps it’s time to change the name of the “George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives” to something a little less creepy.
Mitchell’s name-game isn’t just a Maine thing. Consider, for instance, “the Senator George Mitchell Peace Bridge” located on the border between British-occupied Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The 98-foot bridge spans the Woodford River (aka Sruth Gráinne in Irish) between Cavan in County Cavan in the Republic and Enniskillen in County Fermanagh in the north.
The bridge is named for Mitchell (who was the son of an Irish immigrant dad and a Lebanese-American mum) because of his contributions as chairman of the Irish Peace Accords that led to the “Good Friday Agreement” in 1998 that ended most of the Troubles that plagued Ireland since the 1960s.
Also up for re-naming, in theory, due to his relationship to the pedo-Epstein, would be the so-called “Mitchell Principles” which were the ground rules adopted by Irish and English governments during the peace talks. Below are the rules, according to the Irish Times newspaper in 1996.
Admittedly, it’s probably too late to change the name of the bridge or the principles. There’s still time, however, to change the moniker of the M/V George Mitchell, the 207-foot electric ferry proposed to replace the M/V Margaret Chase Smith, the 166-foot diesel-guzzling ferry currently serving Islesboro from Lincolnville.
According to a MDOT report published last month, the shipyard bids to build the M/V George Mitchell came in too high for the budgeted cash, with price-tags ranging from $41.5 million to $43 million to build the dingy. The state rejected all the bids and is currently re-evaluating their plans.
Which means they can totally erase M/V George Mitchell from the architectural drawings and the stern of any mock-ups. From a nautical perspective, the time for the name change is NOW, before any keel is laid or vessel launched. Because, as we know, scientifically, it’s bad luck to change the name of a boat once she’s gotten wet. (Re: Billy Bob Faulkingham’s shipwreck)
Perhaps the name of the new ship should be the M/V Margaret Chase Smith II.
(Boats shouldn’t named after dudes anyways.)
Also currently pending in the U.S. Senate but not yet approved, is re-naming the “Hulls Cove Visitor Center” in Acadia National Park to “honor” former Majority Leader Mitchell. Sponsored by his buddies Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, according to Senate records, the measure to christen “George J. Mitchell, Jr. Visitors Center” still faces a full Senate vote.
No word, yet, if Mitchell is still being considered for the honor.
In closing, though, there’s one “George J. Mitchell Elementary School” not needing a name change. That’s the kindergarten through second grade school in Little Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey. (GO OSPREYS!!)
That school was named for a different George J. Mitchell, a now-deceased school administrator who didn’t hang out with Jeffry Epstein.
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