An email sent to Jeffrey Epstein and his assistant, Lesley Groff, seems likely to be from Maine’s former 2nd district congressmen, Bruce Poliquin. While the sender’s name and email address are redacted, the content of the email chain points at Poliquin as being the sender.
In the email sent on October 21st, 2014, the redacted sender states that “My campaign is going great, and down to me and the Democrat (bring it on)!!! There are enough disappointed Democrats for me to win this seat.”
The redacted sender goes on to say “The number I have for George is no longer working, do you have his current number? Wanted to reach out to him and Angus for advise.”
the email ends with the redacted sender thanking Epstein and that they “hope to see you [Epstein] soon”. Groff then emails Epstein directly to ask if she should give the redacted sender the phone number for Mitchell or not.
On October 22nd, 2014, Groff replied to the redacted sender with Mitchell’s phone number and to congratulate them for there success so far. The redacted sender replies thanking Groff.
While the sender has been redacted, from the content of the email, we know that the person was running for office in fall of 2014. They emailed Epstein for former Democrat Senator George Mitchell’s phone number because they wanted to contact him and current senator Angus King for advice. The redacted sender claimed that there campaign was “going great” and “down” to them and “the Democrat” for “the seat”.
From the language used, we can surmise that the redacted sender had been facing multiple competitors but, by mid-October, was down to a two-way race. It also shows that this redacted sender isn’t a Democrat but is seeking advice from a former Maine Democrat US Senator and the current Maine Independent US Senator.
Assuming it’s not small (Maine) potatoes emailing Epstein directly, asking for Mitchell’s phone number, receiving it and hoping to see him soon, we can put aside the state legislature candidates and focus on the four larger contests that year; Maine’s gubernatorial, US Senate, US House District 1 and US House District 2 elections.
Maine elections were busy in 2014. In addition to our state senate and house seat elections, Paul LePage was running for his second term as governor, Susan Collins was also up for re-election, as was Chellie Pingree in the 1st district. Maine’s second district, however, had no incumbent running. Rep. Mike Micheaud decided not to run again and the campaign became a 3-way race between Democrat Emily Cain, Independent Blain Richardson and Republican Bruce Poliquin.
Given that Pingree’s republican challenger, Isaac Misiuk, received under 30% of the vote, it would be hard to say his campaign was ever “going great” or that he had a convincing shot for her US House seat, certainly not by mid October when the email was sent to Epstein.
Senator Susan Collins was going one-on-one against Shenna Bellows in her campaign and won with almost 70% support. Additionally, it seems unlikely that Maine’s Senior US Senator, whom was about to crush Shenna Bellows in her 3rd re-election campaign, would seek out advice from either Mitchell or Maine’s other US senator, Angus King.
Governor LePage was facing multiple candidates in his re-election campaign, but that campaign never came down to LePage and the Democrat candidate. That election came down to Lepage and Eliot Cutler, not LePage and the Democrat (Libby Mitchel), who finished a distant 3rd in that election. It also seems unlikely that the proudly brash Paul Lepage would care what Mitchell or King thought, let alone seek there advice.
This leaves Bruce Poliquin. Poliquin was running for his first term for Maine’s 2nd district house seat. The election started as a three-way race but, by mid-October, was down to just Poliquin and the democrat, Emily Cain. Poliquin ended up beating Cain by 5%. Additionally, of those three candidates (Collins, LePage & Poliquin), it seems most likely that the person seeking advice from two of Maine’s most seasoned statesmen would have been the one about to serve there 1st term in congress.
In addition to what the emails say and what can be surmised, there are some unknowns. Its not known why Bruce Poliquin has the personal email of Jeffrey Epstein, how the two know each other, why Epstein was willing to act as a node between Poliquin and Mitchell or if Poliquin was able to see Epstein soon as he had hoped at the end of the email.
–TMP