George John Mitchell Jr. 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 by President Clinton and as United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace by President Barack Obama.
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 ; and one on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball .
Mitchell served as chairman of The Walt Disney Company from March 2004 until January 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.He is one of the few people in modern times to have served in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government.
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State Department ceremony (2009-01-26), quoted in Robert Burns, "Obama's Mideast envoy brings record of patience," http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i1hWov8APjI96ba4coEYQeeoavbAD95V7SK80 Associated Press (2009-01-27)
