On the front lawn of Queen’s University Belfast, three traffic cones mark the spot where a bronze bust of George Mitchell stood a day earlier.
It’s Tuesday morning, four days since the publication of documents linking the former US senator to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein.
Inside the university, a portrait of Mitchell was taken down the previous evening.
On Monday, Queen’s confirmed its decision to remove the name of George J Mitchell from its Institute of Global Peace, Security and Justice.
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A £35,000 sculpture installed to mark Mitchell’s central role in brokering the Belfast Agreement was also to be removed from the campus, it said.
The move followed the emergence of “new information” contained in the latest tranche of US files on Epstein, “which include references to senator Mitchell”, according to Queen’s.
Despite “no findings of wrongdoing by senator Mitchell”, the university deemed it “no longer appropriate” for its “institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name”.
[ The Irish Times view on the Epstein files: a dark vision of how power worksOpens in new window ]
The speed at which Queen’s acted to sever ties with and erase all visible traces of its former chancellor has drawn support and criticism.
Irish-American publisher Niall O’Dowd likened it to a public “lynching”.
“The rush to judgment on George Mitchell and allegations about him being mixed up with Epstein is disgraceful,” he wrote on X.
“There are allegations of all sorts against figures like Donald Trump, Bill Gates, none of them proven so far. That used to be enough, but here we have the noose fixed even before the lynch mob arrives.”
The US-Ireland Alliance, which announced on Sunday that its George J Mitchell scholarship programme would no longer bear his name, and Queen’s have “besmirched the reputation of perhaps the greatest Irish American”, according to O’Dowd – “a man who brought peace to a land where 3,000 had died and thousands more would likely have been killed but for Mitchell’s negotiating genius and personal sacrifice”.
However, former Ulster Unionist Party leader Reg Empey defended Queen’s “swift and decisive” actions.
Epstein was so “toxic” that anyone associated with him will rightly have their judgment questioned, Empey said.
“Reports that senator Mitchell had an association with the disgraced financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein are profoundly disturbing,” he added.
“While the senator denies any wrongdoing, he must know that such a relationship is deemed toxic by the public on both sides of the Atlantic.”
He said young women, many of them in their teens, were “trafficked and abused by Epstein and many of his friends” and it was “their suffering that must be uppermost in our minds”, rather than damage to the reputations of politicians or businessmen.
Former SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell accused Queen’s of “using” Mitchell.
“God bless George Mitchell, we all owe him so much… Queen’s used and abused him for their advantage, and now try to discard him.”
The name “George Mitchell” appears 301 times in the Epstein Files.
Though heavily redacted, the documents show he was regarded as sufficiently close to Epstein to be one of those cited in a “b-day book update” in 2002.
But it is the period after 2008, following Epstein’s first conviction for soliciting a minor in Florida, in which a continued association between the pair is detailed in the files.
Prior to their publication, Mitchell had publicly stated there was no contact with Epstein since the conviction.
But the newly released emails suggest that Epstein had tried to arrange meetings with Mitchell between 2010 and 2013, though it is not clear whether these occurred.
An email sent on October 22nd, 2013 – with the name and email address of both sender and recipient redacted – asks “Can George Mitchell get together w/JE first week of Nov or after Nov 17”.
This meeting was then set up for November 6th, 2013, according to a further email, with an alert reminding of a 10.30am appointment with senator George Mitchell, and a Google Calendar reminder advising that the meeting was scheduled to last from 10.30 to 11.30am.
A string of other emails referencing the former Democratic senator between 2011 and 2014 are contained in the files.
One dated March 19th, 2012, to Epstein from an unnamed sender, has the subject “2 Seminars – MONEY & POWER possible Invite List”, in which Mitchell is listed along with Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and others under the “POWER” list.
Planned lunch dates with Gates, Mitchell and Epstein are also mentioned.
An email from February 12th, 2013, to Epstein from his assistant Lesley Groff asks: “Did you wish me to contact senator George Mitchell now re a possible lunch with you and Bill Gates?” Epstein replies that same day, “Yea”, and later emails her again to say “I left senator Mitchel [sic] a voicemail [redacted] cell.”
In an updated statement released on Tuesday afternoon, Queen’s defended its position.
Mitchell had “previously provided reassurances” to the university regarding his contact with Epstein, but the new files show this “to be incorrect”, it said.
“In light of this information, the university took the decision to remove his name.”
In a statement issued to the BBC on Monday, a spokesperson for Mitchell said he “profoundly regrets” ever having known Epstein and “condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women”.
Mitchell did “not observe, suspect or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women”, according to the spokesperson.
