{"id":119982,"date":"2026-02-02T14:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/119982\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T14:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:06:09","slug":"u-s-ireland-alliance-removes-sen-george-mitchells-name-from-scholarship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/119982\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S.-Ireland alliance removes Sen. George Mitchell\u2019s name from scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\"> (WMTW) &#8211; The U.S.-Ireland Alliance has voted to remove former Sen. George J. Mitchell\u2019s name from its scholarship program following the release of new documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmtw.com\/article\/us-ireland-alliance-removes-sen-george-mitchells-name-from-scholarship\/70212666\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wmtw.com\/article\/us-ireland-alliance-removes-sen-george-mitchells-name-from-scholarship\/70212666\">the organization announced Sunday.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The board\u2019s decision was unanimous and came after information made public Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Trina Vargo, founder and president of the Alliance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The scholarship sends American students to Ireland and Northern Ireland for a year of graduate study. The Alliance marked its 25th class of scholars in 2025. The program is currently paused as the organization works to raise an endowment, a move the Alliance said is unrelated to the name change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are extremely proud of the program and the Scholars, and this turn of events in no way diminishes their achievements,\u201d Vargo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">For now, participants will be referred to as U.S.-Ireland Alliance Scholars. Vargo said the organization will consult with alumni, the Irish government and supporters before updating its website and other materials to reflect the change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2019, Mitchell was mentioned as an associate of Epstein\u2019s in testimony from one of the financier\u2019s victims. Mitchell, however, was never directly linked to child sex abuse and denied any knowledge of Epstein\u2019s criminal actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mitchell, a Democrat from Maine, served in the U.S. Senate from 1980 to 1995.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A spokesperson for Mitchell provided the following statement to Maine\u2019s Total Coverage on Sunday night:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAt no time did Senator Mitchell observe, suspect, or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women. He learned of Epstein\u2019s criminal activity only through media reports related to Epstein\u2019s Florida prosecution and declined or deflected the few invitations to events extended by Epstein\u2019s office in the years that followed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Senator Mitchell profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WABI. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WMTW) &#8211; The U.S.-Ireland Alliance has voted to remove former Sen. George J. Mitchell\u2019s name from its scholarship&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[52565,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-119982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-george-mitchell","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}