References to Trump’s impeachments are reinstalled at Smithsonian exhibit — with some slight but crucial changes

By Michael Williams, CNN

(CNN) — The Smithsonian Institution has reinstalled material referencing President Donald Trump’s two impeachments at an exhibit related to the presidency at the National Museum of American History – but there have been some changes made to the prior text.

As CNN previously reported, the museum last month removed a temporary placard referencing Trump’s two impeachments from the exhibit, which described and contained artifacts related to the impeachments of presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson and the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.

The removal of the placard prompted public outcry against the museum and claims it was capitulating to Trump. The president earlier this year signed an executive order accusing the museum of promoting a “divisive” ideology and directing it to make changes to its programming.

In follow-up statements, the museum system insisted the placard’s removal was temporary and denied it had been pressured by any government official to make changes to its exhibits.

The exhibit now is set up in a way that places information about Trump’s two impeachments in a lower spot than they had been previously. The old placard, which had been installed in September 2021, blocked the view of much of the rest of the exhibit, which includes pieces like the filing cabinet damaged by political operatives working under Nixon during the Watergate era and the Starr report which cited grounds for impeachment against Clinton for actions stemming from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

A more subtle placard about Trump’s two impeachments now rests near the bottom of the exhibit, along with admittance tickets to Senate impeachment proceedings.

Some slight, but significant, changes were made to the placard’s text.

One portion which had previously described Trump’s “solicitation of foreign influence in the 2020 presidential election and defiance of Congressional subpoenas” as the impetus for his first impeachment now includes the word “alleged.”

A description of his second impeachment now omits a claim that Trump made repeated “false statements” challenging his loss in the 2020 election, as well as a quote from the impeachment article accusing Trump of delivering a speech that “encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol.”

Trump was the third American president to be impeached and the only one to be impeached twice. In 2019 he was impeached on charges alleging he unlawfully solicited Ukraine to influence the 2020 presidential election, and in 2021 he was impeached for his actions related to the insurrection at the US Capitol that year.

He was acquitted both times by the Senate.

The Smithsonian said in a statement to CNN that it takes “great care to ensure that what we present to the public reflects both intellectual integrity and thoughtful design.”

“Specifically, a temporary placard was not consistent with other sections in the exhibit and blocked part of the case,” the statement said. “We removed it to make way for a more permanent update to the content inside the case.”

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