It is hard for me to understand how proposing some minor outreach goal (that would consume <5% of the budget) politicizes the science. Perhaps the outreach was politicized, but outreach is not science.
Marie Curry, arguably one of the greatest scientist of the last century, the only one who got two nobel prize in two different categories, only got into science because of an underground outreach science program in Warsaw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_University).
She then immigrated in france, probably because French "Academie des Sciences" forgot to make a rule about not allowing women to make science, and was only hired to her first scientist job because... Of a science outreach program (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_d%27encourag...).