Smithsonian slated to restore Trump impeachment exhibit
The museum said in a Saturday statement that the section will be 'updated in the coming weeks to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation's history.'
The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the exhibit plans, that the removal of the placard occurred as part of an internal content review the institution agreed to after pressure from President Trump's administration to get rid of the art museum director.
The Smithsonian said on Saturday that the placard, part of the exhibit 'The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,' did not meet the institution's standards and argued no one within the administration asked the museum to remove the information.
'The placard, which was meant to be a temporary addition to a twenty-five-year-old exhibition, did not meet the museum's standards in appearance, location, timeline and overall presentation. It was not consistent with other sections in the exhibit and moreover blocked the view of the objects inside its case,' the Smithsonian said in a statement.
'For these reasons, we removed the placard. We were not asked by any Administration or other government official to remove content from the exhibit,' the museum added.
The placard, before being removed last month, detailed Trump's two impeachments and was featured as part of the exhibit since September 2021, the Smithsonian previously told The Hill.
'It was intended to be a short-term measure to address current events at the time, however, the label remained in place until July 2025,' a Smithsonian spokesperson said.
'The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion,' the spokesperson added. '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 president was impeached two times during his first White House term: once over a phone call where he allegedly asked Ukraine to investigate then-ex-President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and the other over his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted by the Senate in both instances.
The removal of the placard drew backlash from Democratic Party lawmakers.
Trump signed an executive order in March, ordering the removal of 'divisive narratives' from the Smithsonian museums that are not compatible with the administration's views and 'remind' Americans 'of our extraordinary heritage.'
'As the keeper of memory for the nation, it is our privilege and responsibility to tell accurate and complete histories. As has been recently reported, in July, a placard was removed from the National Museum of American History's exhibit 'The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,'' the Smithsonian said on Saturday.
'The intent of the Impeachment section of the exhibit is to reflect all impeachment proceedings in our nation's history,' the institution added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
10 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
A look at colleges with federal money targeted by the Trump administration
Several elite U.S. colleges have made deals with President Donald Trump's administration, offering concessions to his political agenda and financial payments to restore federal money that had been withheld. Ivy League schools Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania reached agreements to resolve federal investigations. The Republican administration is pressing for more, citing the deal it negotiated with Columbia as a 'road map' for other colleges. There is a freeze on billions of dollars of research money for other colleges including Harvard, which has been negotiating with the White House even as it fights in court over the lost grants. And on Friday, a White House official said the Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the the University of California, Los Angeles. Like no other president, Trump has used the government's control over federal research funding to push for changes in higher education, decrying elite colleges as places of extreme liberal ideology and antisemitism. Here's a look at universities pressured by the administration's funding cuts. Columbia said on July 23 that it had agreed to a $200 million fine to restore federal funding. The school was threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants canceled earlier this year. The administration pulled the money because of what it described as Columbia's failure to address antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war. Columbia agreed to administration demands such as overhauling its student disciplinary process and applying a federally backed definition of antisemitism to teaching and a disciplinary committee investigating students critical of Israel. Federal officials said the fine will go to the Treasury Department and cannot be spent until Congress appropriates it. Columbia also agreed to pay $21 million into a compensation fund for employees who may have faced antisemitism. The deal includes a clause that Columbia says preserves its independence, putting in writing that the government does not have the authority to dictate 'hiring, admission decisions, or the content of academic speech.' An agreement last month calls for Brown to pay $50 million to Rhode Island workforce development organizations. That would restore dozens of lost federal research grants and end investigations into allegations of antisemitism and racial bias in Brown admissions. Among other concessions, Brown agreed to adopt the government's definition of 'male' and 'female' and remove any consideration of race from the admissions process. Like the settlement with Columbia, Brown's does not include a finding of wrongdoing. It includes a provision saying the government does not have authority to dictate Brown's curriculum or 'the content of academic speech.' The Trump administration suspended $584 million in federal grants to UCLA, the university said this week, after the Department of Justice said the college had violated civil rights 'by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.' On Friday, a White House official said the Trump administration was seeking a $1 billion settlement from the university. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the request and spoke on the condition of anonymity. UCLA is the first public university to have its federal grants targeted by the administration over alleged civil rights violations. Under a July agreement resolving a federal civil rights case, Penn modified three school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and said it would apologize to female athletes 'disadvantaged' by Thomas' participation on the women's swimming team. The Education Department investigated Penn as part of the administration's broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. As part of the case, the administration had suspended $175 million in funding to Penn. The administration has frozen more than $2.6 billion in research grants to Harvard, accusing the nation's oldest and wealthiest university of allowing antisemitism to flourish. Harvard has pushed back with several lawsuits. In negotiations for a possible settlement, the administration is seeking for Harvard to pay an amount far higher than Columbia. The White House announced in April that it froze more than $1 billion of Cornell's federal funding as it investigated allegations of civil rights violations. The Ivy League school was among a group of more than 60 universities that received a letter from the Education Department on March 10 urging them to take steps to protect Jewish students or else face 'potential enforcement actions.' Like Cornell, Northwestern saw a halt in some of its federal funding in April. The amount was about $790 million, according to the administration. The administration this week froze $108 million in federal money for Duke. The hold on funding from the National Institutes of Health came days after the departments of Health and Human Services and Education sent a joint letter alleging racial preferences in Duke's hiring and admissions. Dozens of research grants were suspended at Princeton without a clear rationale, according to an April 1 campus message from the university's president, Christopher Eisgruber. The grants came from federal agencies such as the Department of Energy, NASA and the Pentagon.
The Hill
10 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump wages war on renewables
The moves are expected to create issues for the renewable energy industry, ones critics argue could raise power prices. President Trump's tax and spending megabill slashed incentives for wind and solar energy that were part of the Democrats' 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which is expected to significantly stifle the build-out of the growing industry. And in recent weeks, his administration has taken further actions to hamper wind and solar power. To catch you up: Shortly after the bill passed, Trump directed the Treasury Department to take a strict approach in limiting which projects are eligible for the remaining tax credits. The Interior Department also recently announced it would subject wind and solar projects to an elevated review process — a move that was expected to slow down their approvals. Last week, Interior said it would try to block projects that take up a lot of room, which is expected to primarily hurt solar and wind projects. The department said last week that it would weigh 'whether to stop onshore wind development on some federal lands and halting future offshore wind lease sales.' It also moved this week to try to cancel an already approved wind project in Idaho. The Environmental Protection Agency separately announced Thursday it would move to claw back funds under a $7 billion rooftop solar program. The Interior Department's elevated review processes are expected to pertain not only to wind and solar farm approvals but also include a wide range of activities such as grants and assessments of endangered species impacts. Ben Norris, vice president of regulatory affairs with the Solar Energy Industry Association, said he expects some of these reviews would not only delay projects on public lands but could have similar effects on projects on private lands. 'We are hearing about dozens, if not hundreds of projects in the aggregate that otherwise are totally sited on private lands, totally permitted by state and local authorities, but that the Interior Department seems to have found a way to put into limbo, at least for a time,' Norris told The Hill.
The Hill
10 minutes ago
- The Hill
EPA dissolves union contract, AFGE says
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has unilaterally dissolved a collective bargaining agreement with members of the union that represents its workers, the union said Friday. 'The Trump administration and EPA's unlawful and authoritarian move to unilaterally strip EPA workers of their collective bargaining agreement and workplace rights is nothing short of an assault on our democracy, the rule of law, and the lives of working people in America,' said Justin Chen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents 8,000 EPA staffers, in a written statement. 'When you strip the rights of EPA workers, you weaken the EPA's ability to do its job and ensure Americans can drink clean water and breathe clean air – and that's exactly what [President] Trump, [EPA Administrator Lee] Zeldin, and their billionaire supporters want,' Chen added. He also said the union would fight the decision, saying 'AFGE Council 238 is united in our fight to defend our rights, our agency's mission, and to protect the future of our country and planet. We will see the administration in court.' The Hill has reached out to the EPA for comment. The EPA's apparent move comes after a similar decision at the Department of Veterans Affairs this week. Both actions come after a federal court sided with the Trump administration on whether it can rescind such contracts. It also comes amid a broader effort to target the federal workforce, with thousands of people across the government being fired.
