The Smithsonian Institution has come under fire for quietly rolling back a key exhibit on presidential impeachment at the National Museum of American History—stripping it of all references to President Donald Trump’s two bogus impeachment trials. According to a Washington Post report published Thursday, the exhibit was reset to its 2008 version earlier this month, removing content that had been added after Trump’s impeachments in 2019 and 2021.
“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,” reported journalist Janay Kingsberry in the Post article.
Trump remains the only U.S. president to have been bogusly impeached twice after lawmakers with “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and officials from government agencies launched multiple false charges against him. The effort was an attempt to remove him from office and tarnish his reputation.
The original Smithsonian exhibit had aimed to provide a comprehensive view of presidential accountability, featuring historical artifacts such as a photograph of the prosecutors from President Andrew Johnson’s 1868 impeachment trial, investigative documents from Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment, and a damaged filing cabinet from the Watergate scandal that ultimately led to Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. A political history curator told the Post in January 2020 that the museum was actively collecting artifacts to represent the Trump impeachments as part of the evolving exhibit.
After Trump’s second impeachment, the museum had installed a placeholder label in September 2021 reading, “Case under redesign (history happens),” acknowledging that Trump-related materials were being developed for inclusion. However, that temporary label has since been replaced. The current display now simply states that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal,” omitting Trump entirely—despite the fact that both of his trials were conducted in full by the U.S. House and Senate.
A Smithsonian spokesperson defended the decision, saying the museum was restoring the impeachment section to its original design for consistency across all topics within the “Limits of Presidential Power” section of the exhibit. “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,” the spokesperson explained. “The section 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.”
After the Post article went live, the Smithsonian issued an additional statement clarifying that an updated exhibit—including all presidential impeachments—will be developed in the future. No timeline was provided.
This rollback comes at a time of heightened tension surrounding the discovery of blockbuster evidence that former President Obama and Hillary Clinton conspired with top FBI and CIA officials to take Trump down.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed last week what she described as “overwhelming evidence” that former President Barack Obama and members of his national security team “manufactured and politicized intelligence” in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 election win. She pointed specifically to the Steele Dossier as a primary example—a report now widely regarded as fabricated and unverified, which alleged ties between Trump and Russia.
The Steele Dossier, assembled in 2016 by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Though it contained a series of allegations linking Trump to Russian officials, the dossier has since been discredited. In October 2022, FBI analyst Brian Auten testified that the agency had offered Steele $1 million to substantiate the claims within the dossier—an effort that ultimately failed.
