The Trump Administration Is Literally Trying to Rewrite History
The Smithsonian has removed Donald Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under pressure from the White House, reported The Washington Post. The remainder of the exhibit focuses on Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, effectively returning the exhibit to the way it looked in 2008.
A temporary label had been plastered on the exhibit since 2021, playfully notifying visitors: “case under redesign (history happens).” The “American Presidency” wing’s updated signage now explains that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal” over the course of American history.
The change was the result of a White House–initiated content review in the wake of an art director’s ousting.
“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed,” a Smithsonian spokesperson told the Post in a statement. “The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion. Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”
Trump is the only U.S. president to be impeached twice—in 2019 and 2021—but a Smithsonian visitor wouldn’t know that by searching the exhibit’s digital companion, which doesn’t offer much information on either of the impeachment cases. And while searches of the museum’s collection yield dozens of results for America’s other impeachment subjects, a search for Trump only provides one “Impeach Trump” button from a 2017 protest.
At least one curator at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum has been on a quest to better document Trump’s impeachments. In 2020, a political history curator told the Post that he was hunting for the right objects to tell that story and that work was underway to amend the exhibit. He did not offer a date for the exhibit’s completion, however.
The Smithsonian responded to the Post in a statement promising that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments.”
It is not clear, however, if that future updated exhibit will appear during Trump’s second term.