Is Trump trying to sanitize his political legacy at the Smithsonian?
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But the exhibit, 'The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,' does not mention Trump, who was first impeached by the Democrat-led House in 2019 for
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In 2021, Trump was again impeached by the House, this time
But visitors to the American presidency exhibit will learn nothing about that, as Trump may again be attempting to whitewash this nation's history to sanitize his own scandal-scarred political career.
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Trump may also be trying to rewrite his own personal history after his Justice Department's abrupt refusal last month to release its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his former friend, who reportedly died by suicide in a New York jail while awaiting trial on federal child sex trafficking charges in 2019.
But what's happened at the National Museum of American History may be yet another effort by Trump to expunge inconvenient truths, especially when they pertain to him.
So far, the Trump administration has made no comment about last month's removal of his impeachments from the exhibit, but their sudden disappearance perhaps reveals more than Karoline Leavitt, Trump's press secretary, ever would.
In a
The impeachment section, the statement said, 'will be updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation's history.'
Given past actions, it's hard to imagine that Trump will allow any public exhibit to highlight his impeachments. During his decade in politics, concealing the truth has been his standard operating procedure. It's why Trump always claims that something is 'rigged' when it doesn't go his way or he's trying to shirk responsibility for his own errant actions.
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Trump continues to lie that the 2020 presidential election that he lost was 'rigged.' He's warbling a similar refrain as his reason for his
At least in public, there's no evidence that he has considered how his erratic tariffs are affecting job creation statistics and the overall economy.
And Trump is still trying to erase the horrors that millions witnessed in real time when his followers stormed the Capitol. Even as shattered glass and human excrement left by white supremacists was still on the floor of the Capitol rotunda, Trump was spinning a tale to convince viewers that they did not see exactly what they saw.
On his first day back in office, Trump
Museums change and update exhibits all the time. But given Trump's war against history, the museum's explanation seems a little suspect. The coming weeks will show where the truth lies, but the fact that this conversation even needs to be had shows just how much damage the Trump administration's anti-truth telling has already inflicted.
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
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