The Smithsonian Institution has publicly addressed the removal of a display at the National Museum of American History that mentioned President Donald Trump‘s two prior impeachments, saying the presentation would return to view—in an “updated” version.
How the display would be changed and when those changes might be instituted were not detailed in the statement, which was posted Saturday to the official Smithsonian X account. The statement merely said that the presentation will “be updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation’s history.”
As the Washington Post reported several days earlier, the display had been on view at the Washington, D.C., museum since 2021 and had mentioned Trump’s impeachments alongside those of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, as well as the resignation of Richard Nixon, who would have faced impeachment proceedings as well if he had not left his position on his own.
But, as the Post reported, a placard in the display had recently been altered to note that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.” A Smithsonian spokesperson told the Post that the placard was returned to its 2008 version, which predated Trump’s first term by eight years.
“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,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Post.
This weekend, the Smithsonian tried to set the record straight, saying that the display addresses “all impeachment proceedings in our nation’s history.”
“The placard, which was meant to be a temporary addition to a 25-year-old exhibition, did not meet the museum’s standards in appearance, location, timeline, and overall presentation,” the Smithsonian statement said. “It was not consistent with other sections in the exhibit and moreover blocked the view of the objects inside its case. For these reasons, we removed the placard.”
Moreover, the Smithsonian said, “We were not asked by any Administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit.”
The Smithsonian’s board does include one prominent member of the Trump administration: Vice President J.D. Vance. Trump, who is not on the board of the Smithsonian, has previously made attempts to target the institution, writing in one executive order of “anti-American ideology” in its various museums.
Earlier this year, Trump also said he fired Kim Sajet, who was at the time the director of the Smithsonian-run National Portrait Gallery. She continued to report to work, then resigned on her own.
The museum was roiled again by controversy in July when painter Amy Sherald canceled the National Portrait Gallery’s version of her traveling survey, which includes an image of a Black trans woman posing as the Statue of Liberty that some museum staffers feared might generate pushback from the Trump administration. Sherald said she was urged to remove the work, which does appear in the current Whitney Museum iteration of the show, so she pulled her exhibition.
