Cover up? Smithsonian says Trump impeachment exhibit removal wasn't due to White House pressure

Recently, it was revealed that the National Museum of American History has removed a placard detailing US President Donald Trump's two impeachments. The display, the "impeachment" exhibit, part of the wider exhibit called "The American Presidency", until July 2025 included references to both of Trump's impeachments and now states, “Only three presidents have seriously faced removal.” Reports suggested that the exhibit was taken down, supposedly as part of a content review that the Smithsonian has "agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director". However, on Saturday, the Smithsonian, in a post on X, insisted that the move had nothing to do with pressure from the White House.

Cover up or something else? What did the Smithsonian say?

In a statement posted Saturday on X, the Smithsonian said the placard — which had been added to an existing presidential impeachment exhibit — was a temporary addition that "did not meet the museum's standards in appearance, location, timeline, and overall presentation." The museum added that "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."

"We were not asked by any Administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit," it insisted.

Despite the current controversy, the Smithsonian says the impeachment exhibit is being revised. The exhibit "will be updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation's history," it said.

The response comes two days after The Washington Post reported that the Trump-era placard had quietly disappeared last month, replaced with older signage that referred only to Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton — omitting Trump, who is the only US president to have been impeached twice. It also reported that the museum's parent organisation began reviewing content following tensions with the Trump administration, which recently moved to oust a director of one of the Smithsonian's art museums.

United States' impeached presidents

In the US, four presidents have been impeached:

• Andrew Johnson in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act—was acquitted by the Senate later.
• Richard Nixon, in 1974, faced impeachment proceedings for his role in the Watergate scandal. However, he resigned before the House could vote on the impeachment motion.
• Bill Clinton in 1998 for the perjury and obstruction of justice related to his affair with Monica Lewinsky — was acquitted by the Senate later.
• Donald Trump, as mentioned, has been impeached twice. In 2019, he was impeached for abuse of power and for alleged unlawful solicitation from Ukraine. In 2021, he was impeached over the Jan 6 US Capitol insurrection. Both times, he was acquitted by the Senate.

Trump rewriting history?

Since his return to the White House, Donald Trump has made multiple attempts to exert influence over American cultural institutions. Since January of this year, he has taken over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has made drastic changes at the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and has imposed budget cuts on the National Park Service.

In March, in an apparent bid to exert influence on the Smithsonian, he signed an executive order to eliminate what he called "anti-American ideology" across the Smithsonian museums and "restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness." He later, without any authority, tried to fire Kim Sajet, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, accusing her of being "a highly partisan" person. To back his attempts, his White House later published a list of 17 instances, including the caption for the museum's presidential portrait for Trump, which mentioned the two impeachments and "incitement of insurrection" for Jan 6.