A portrait of embattled former U.S. Senate Leader George Mitchell has been stripped from the Maine State House, a move that the state’s top investigative journalist calls possibly Mitchell’s ultimate indignity.
Maine legislative officials have been under pressure to take the Democrat ex-leader’s portrait down from the wall where it has hung for 14 years.
The Maine House GOP shared video showing the portrait being removed Friday afternoon.
The portrait’s removal comes just three weeks after Mitchell resigned as chairman of the Mitchell Institute following the recent unsealing of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex-abuse case.
“This might be the harshest consequence he faces,” Steve Robinson, chief editor of The Maine Wire, said.
Robinson, a Dexter native and Bowdoin College graduate, was among hundreds of high-school seniors who benefited from the institute’s scholarships.
The institute selects recipients for the $10,000 Mitchell Scholarship, which organization officials recently said they would be renaming due to the fallout from the Epstein case.
The institute’s financial assistance targets graduating Maine high-school seniors to support higher education with scholarships, mentoring, and funding.
As of last count, Mitchell’s name had been scrubbed from the institute, from the U.S.-Ireland alliance and from Queen’s University in Belfast, which also removed his bust from campus.
After retiring from the U.S. Senate, Mitchell played a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland, leading to the so-called Good Friday Agreement.
Despite his name being mentioned thousands of times in the so-called Epstein files, Mitchell has denied that he had any connection with the convicted sexual trafficker.
George Mitchell’s ‘Ultimate Humiliation’ Stemming From Sex Scandal: Removal Of His Portrait From Maine State House
By Ted Cohen
