'Pathetic': Top Senate democrat lashes out at Smithsonian for removing Trump from impeachment exhibit
'Donald Trump, you can't change history. You can't avoid the truth. History will haunt you,' Chuck Schumer says
President Donald Trump at East Room of the White House a day after his Senate impeachment trial acquittal in Washington, United States in February, 2020.
WASHINGTON
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday took aim at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History over its removal of President Donald Trump from an exhibit about presidential impeachments, calling the move "pathetic."
"Well, we all know that Donald Trump loves to rewrite and erase parts of history he doesn't like. Yesterday, though we saw a shameful new low.
"Yesterday, we learned that Donald Trump quietly forced the Smithsonian to remove him from the impeachment exhibit at the American History Museum," Schumer told on the Senate floor over the decision of the museum, which has vowed to restore the exhibit after it is updated.
His remarks came a day after the Washington Post reported that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. Lawmakers impeached Trump once in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and again in 2021 for incitement of insurrection over the Jan. 6 Capitol riots that year.
Citing an unnamed source who was briefed on the matter, the report 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.
Later, the Smithsonian said in a statement that "a future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments."
"It's something you'd see in an authoritarian regime. It's something the head of North Korea would do, not America. And quite frankly, it's sad, it's pathetic," Schumer said.
Schumer argued that Trump is "so angry" that he is the only president in American history to be impeached twice.
"He wants to try and change the past, change the truth, and trade history for propaganda. But Donald Trump, you can't change history. You can't avoid the truth. History will haunt you," he said.
In March, Trump signed an executive order aimed at reforming the Smithsonian Institution by removing what he considers "improper ideology" from its museums, research centers, and the National Zoo.
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