Smithsonian Erased Trump From Impeachment Display Following 'Content Review' By White House

Caving to pressure from the White House, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History removed references to President Donald Trump from a display on the history of presidential impeachment.

Trump is the only president in United States history to have been impeached twice—once in 2019 after he pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rivals, and again in 2021 for inciting the January 6 insurrection.

But according to a Thursday report from The Washington Post, the museum removed any acknowledgment of these facts from the exhibit in July.

The Post reported:

A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.

Prior to the change, the museum had added a temporary label acknowledging Trump's impeachments, which was added in September 2021.

But the current exhibit states that "only three presidents have seriously faced removal"—those being former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, who were formally impeached, and Richard Nixon, who was not impeached, but likely would have been had he not resigned amid the Watergate scandal.

The exhibit's online collection likewise almost entirely omits Trump. According to The Post:

The online companion for the display briefly mentions Trump's impeachments, but does not provide any further information about the cases. And a search of the history museum's collection for "impeachment" yields 125 results for Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton—and a single "Impeach Trump" button from a 2017 environmental protest.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its desire to shape institutions like the Smithsonian to flatter the president's preferred telling of American history.

In March, Trump signed an executive order forbidding the Smithsonian from hosting exhibits that "degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconstant with federal law and policy."

It specifically singled out exhibits containing "narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive" including at the American Art Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It also targeted any exhibits at the Museum of Women's History that acknowledge the achievements of transgender women.

Following The Post's embarrassing report, the Smithsonian reversed course and released a statement clarifying that "a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments." It did not specify when that exhibit would be unveiled, or what it would include.

However, the museum is still facing widespread condemnation for caving to the pressure campaign in the first place.

Kavian Shroff, a political commentator and the senior advisor to the Institute for Education, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, said the Smithsonian was "erasing history to appease an authoritarian."

"Another institution caves," he added, referencing other actions by media organizations, universities, and government bodies to avoid confrontation with Trump.

"'Orwellian' is a much-overused phrase," said author and Politico magazine commentator Jeff Greenfield. "But forcing the Smithsonian to erase the fact of Trump's impeachments is right out of 1984. Did they drop that stuff down the memory hole?"

Even Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), jumped in to reaffirm the continued existence of consensus reality.

"Trump can pretend it didn't happen all he wants, but the facts don't lie—he was impeached twice," Pocan said. "I know. I was there."