Smithsonian denies White House pressure to remove Trump impeachment references
News that Trump was no longer on museum’s impeached presidents list sparked concerns history was being whitewashed to appease the US leader
The White House did not pressure the Smithsonian to remove references to US President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit and will include him in an updated presentation “in the coming weeks”, the museum said on Saturday.
“We were not asked by any administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit,” the Smithsonian statement said.
A museum spokesman, Phillip Zimmerman, had previously pledged that “a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments”, but it was not clear when the new exhibit would be installed. The museum on Saturday did not say when in the coming weeks the new exhibit will be ready.
A label referring to Trump’s impeachments had been added in 2021 to the National Museum for American History’s exhibit on the American presidency, in a section called “Limits of Presidential Power”.