George J. Mitchell
George John Mitchell Jr. (born August 20, 1933)[2] is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. A leading member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995, and as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995. After retiring from the Senate, Mitchell played a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. He was appointed United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland (1995–2001) by President Clinton and as United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (2009–2011) by President Barack Obama.
"Senator Mitchell" redirects here. For other uses, see Senator Mitchell (disambiguation).
George Mitchell
Anthony Zinni (2003)
Position established
Position established
Robert Byrd
Hubert Humphrey (1978)
Vacant
Seat established
Jimmy Carter
James Brannigan
3
1954–1956
Mitchell was a primary architect of the 1996 Mitchell Principles and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and was the main investigator in two "Mitchell Reports": one on the Arab–Israeli conflict (2001); and one on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball (2007).
Mitchell served as chairman of the Walt Disney Company from 2004 until 2007, and later as chairman of the international law firm DLA Piper. He was the Chancellor of Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 1999 to 2009. Mitchell also has served as a co-chair of the Housing Commission at the Bipartisan Policy Center.[3] He is one of the few people in modern times to have served in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.
Early life[edit]
Origins[edit]
Mitchell was born in Waterville, Maine. His father, George John Mitchell Sr. (born Joseph Kilroy), was born in Ireland and adopted by a Lebanese American when he was orphaned.[4][5] Mitchell's father was a janitor at Colby College in Waterville, where Mitchell was raised. Mitchell's mother, Mary (née Saad), was a textile worker who immigrated to the United States in 1920 from Bkassine, Lebanon, at the age of eighteen.[5][6]
Mitchell was raised a Maronite Catholic and in his childhood served as an altar boy at St. Joseph's Maronite Church in Maine.[7][8] Throughout junior high school and high school, he worked as a janitor.[9] In the family of five children, all three of his brothers were athletes; though a talented student as a child, he found himself overshadowed by his brothers' athletic achievements.[9]
Education and military service[edit]
After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen,[4] Mitchell attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he worked several jobs and played on the basketball team.[4] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1954, intending to attend graduate school and then teach, but instead served in the United States Army from 1954 to 1956, rising to First Lieutenant. In 1961, Mitchell received his Bachelor of Laws from Georgetown University Law Center by attending its part-time program at night. He has since received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Bates College.
Political career[edit]
Early legal career[edit]
After having performed well academically at Georgetown, Mitchell served as a trial attorney for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington from 1960 to 1962, and then as executive assistant to Senator Edmund S. Muskie from 1962 to 1965, where he first gained interest in the political world.[9] Afterwards, Mitchell practiced law with Jensen & Baird[10] in Portland, Maine, from 1965 to 1977 and was assistant county attorney for Cumberland County, Maine, in 1971.
Personal life[edit]
Mitchell was married for 26 years until he and his wife Sally divorced in 1987. They are the parents of a daughter, Andrea. In December 1994, he married Heather MacLachlan, 35, a sports management consultant.[8][48] They have a son, Andrew, and daughter, Claire, named in honor of Claire Bowes (née Gallagher) who had so inspired him when she was blinded in the Omagh bombing.[49]
Mitchell was diagnosed with a "small, low grade, and localized" prostate cancer in 2007.[50]
In August 2020, he was diagnosed with acute leukemia, but by April 2023, he described himself as "pain-free and in remission."[51][52]
Epstein scandal[edit]
Virginia Giuffre, a woman who has long claimed that disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein forced her to have sex with powerful men, named Mitchell in documents unsealed on August 9, 2019 (a day before Epstein's death), by a Federal court in the Southern District of New York. The papers included affidavits and depositions of key witnesses in a 2015 lawsuit that Giuffre filed against Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.[53] Giuffre accused the two individuals of sex-trafficking her to high-profile individuals, including Mitchell, in the early 2000s while she was underage.[54][55] Mitchell denied ever having met or spoken with Giuffre, and stated that he became aware of Epstein's criminal prosecution only through the media.[54]
On November 30, 2021, Epstein's former pilot Larry Visoski named Mitchell as one of the people he recalled flying on one of Epstein's private planes, but claimed to have never seen sexual activity nor indication that such activity had taken place.[56][57]
Awards and honors[edit]
In 1994, Mitchell received the US Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award distributed annually by Jefferson Awards.[58]
In recognition for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, Mitchell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Liberty Medal, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.[59] In addition, in 1999 Mitchell was invested as an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).
In 2002, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[60][61]
In 2003, he received the Freedom Medal.[62]
On January 28, 2014, a portrait of Mitchell was unveiled for display at the Maine State Capitol alongside those of other notable Mainers.[63]
On April 10, 2018, Mitchell was awarded Freedom of the City of Belfast, alongside former President Bill Clinton in a ceremony at the Ulster Hall.[64]
1 Previously appointed to the office by then-Governor Joe Brennan in 1980 following the resignation of Ed Muskie to become Secretary of State