WATCH: American History museum director gives opening statement in Smithsonian oversight hearing

Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, said “the museum does not take sides in America's political debates,” during her opening statement Tuesday in a hearing before the House Oversight’s Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee.

The hearing focused on the way the Smithsonian Institution presents scholarship on U.S. history. In announcing the hearing, the Republican-led committee claimed that the “Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is promoting a narrow, politically tendentious agenda instead of seeking to instill in visitors an appreciation for America’s unique history as a beacon of liberty, democracy, and opportunity.”

Hartig said a report from the White House Domestic Policy Council that the committee’s chair, Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said showed examples of politicization “does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum.”

Hartig said the museum is governed by “the Smithsonian standards of scholarship, accuracy, independence, and nonpartisanship.”

“We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all of its breadth, so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions,” she said.

In President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has sought to clamp down on how American history is framed in public spaces, removing exhibits from national parks on slavery and violence against Native Americans. On July 4, the White House released a 162-page report called “Saving America’s Story” that alleged that the National Museum of American History has moved “away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

The Smithsonian has pushed back against that characterization.

“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” it said in a statement earlier this month.

The hearing is one of two scheduled for this week in the House focused on the Smithsonian.

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