The U.S.-Ireland Alliance is removing former Maine Sen. George J. Mitchell’s name from its scholarship program after the release of more documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the organization announced on Sunday.   

The board unanimously voted to rename the program because of “new information that has come to light” in 3 million pages of documents related to the late financier and convicted child sex offender that were made public Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice, the alliance’s founder and president Trina Vargo said in a statement.

The Irish Independent reported the documents included emails between assistants of Mitchell and Epstein arranging meetings between the men in 2010 and 2013.

Vargo said in an email that evidence of Mitchell remaining in contact with Epstein after his 2008 conviction is what “made our case.”

In 2019, Mitchell, a Democrat who is now 92, flatly denied allegations that he had contact with a woman who said Epstein kept her as a sex slave after court documents from 2016 were unsealed.

In the 2016 deposition, Virginia Giuffre said Epstein offered her for erotic massages and sex to a group of powerful men including Mitchell, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Britain’s Prince Andrew and billionaire Glenn Dubin.

All men said her account was fabricated.  Giuffre settled a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in 2022. She died by suicide last year.

“I have never met, spoken with or had any contact with Ms. Giuffre,” Mitchell told the Portland Press Herald in 2019. “In my contacts with Mr. Epstein I never observed or suspected any inappropriate conduct with underage girls. I only learned of his actions when they were reported in the media related to his prosecution in Florida. We have had no further contact.”

Mitchell has never been directly linked to child sex abuse and has denied all knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity. Epstein died by suicide in a cell in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges.

A letter believed to be from Mitchell was among the handwritten notes making up a scrapbook for Epstein’s 50th birthday, known as the “birthday book,” that was public in September. In the letter, sent in 2003, Mitchell appears to call Epstein a “good friend.”

Mitchell grew up in Waterville and graduated from Bowdoin College. Formerly a U.S. attorney and U.S. District Court judge, Mitchell was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1980 to finish Sen. Edmund Muskie’s term after Muskie was named secretary of state. Mitchell was reelected twice, serving as Senate majority leader in his second term. 

Turning down an offer from President Bill Clinton to be a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Mitchell instead spent several years as a U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland, where in 1998 he helped broker the Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of conflict. The scholarship, founded in 2000, was named after him for his pivotal role in the peace process, according to the U.S.-Ireland Alliance’s website.

The prestigious scholarship program, founded in 2000, sends up to 12 post-graduate American students to Ireland and Northern Ireland for one year of graduate study. The program is currently paused, and has been since March of 2024, as the U.S.-Ireland Alliance seeks to raise an endowment for the program. 

“We are extremely proud of the program and the Scholars, and this turn of events in no way diminishes their achievements or our commitment to keeping them connected to the island, the Alliance, and each other,” Vargo said in the statement. 

“This decision allows us to focus on our mission to strengthen the ties between the U.S. and the island of Ireland.  Given the current state of the relationship, that is more important than ever,” she said. 

Vargo said that the organization’s scholars will be referred to as U.S.-Ireland Alliance Scholars in the short term, and asked for patience as the program’s name is updated.