Smithsonian Restores Mention of Trump’s Impeachments at National Portrait Gallery
2May 19, 2026
TheNational Portrait Galleryin Washington, DC, has reinstated mention of Donald Trump’s two impeachments in a new wall text accompanying his portrait in the institution’s gallery of American presidents. The museum had earlier sparked an uproar by scrubbing all reference to the events as theSmithsonian, its parent institution, came underintense scrutinyfrom the White House, which complained about the summary accompanying Trump’s portrait.
The original text mentioned the reasons behind Trump’s twin impeachments, reading, “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.”
The new text follows an abbreviated format shared by the summaries accompanying the other presidential portraits in the exhibition and mentions only the fact of the impeachments alongside Trump accomplishments including his efforts on the Abraham Accords and his part in the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine. The January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol is mentioned, as is the administration’s response to the 2020 protests that followed the murder by police of George Floyd.
“We followed all the normal review processes for the labels,” Mindy Farmer, the National Portrait Gallery historian who led the revamp of the texts, told the New York Times. Farmer noted that the labels are typically reworked periodically, and that the most recent efforts on this front had begun in 2022. She affirmed that the change had not been made in response to the White House’s complaints regarding the previous wall text.
Though the Trump administration described the new description as “fair and accurate,” it did issue a complaint. “There are still many missing accomplishments from President Trump’s first historic first term,” a White House spokesperson told the Times.