In another of a series of moves restricting media access at the Pentagon, the Defence Department has declared that its press office is now a classified space inaccessible to journalists.

On X, acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez confirmed the move, saying there was “nothing controversial” about it and that it came because speechwriters, who use classified material, were now occupying the space.

“The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War sharing the facility,” Mr. Valdez wrote.

“These speechwriters routinely handle classified material … as a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that.”

The latest move, first reported by The Washington Post, took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the U.S. media and the second Trump administration, which has played out both in the public arena and at times in the courts.

For many years, Pentagon reporters had credentials granting them wide movement in the building as they sought to interact with press officials there. But last October, most news outlets turned in access badges and walked out of the Pentagon rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work.

The New York Times sued the Defence Department on May 18 for the second time in five months, arguing that a requirement that journalists be escorted while on Pentagon grounds violates the First Amendment and is “an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs.”

The paper said it had filed the additional lawsuit after first suing the Pentagon in December over new rules imposed by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, to challenge an interim policy “that the Pentagon hastily put into place after a federal judge ruled in The Times’s favor in its original lawsuit.” The new policy included the requirement that journalists be accompanied by escorts at all times while in the Pentagon.

The policy was implemented in March following a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman that had struck down earlier restrictions. The following month, the judge ruled that the interim policy violated his March order. But the escort policy remained in place when an appeals court stayed part of Friedman’s ruling while the government appeals. The appeals process is ongoing.

Israel on Thursday (May 14, 2026) threatened to take The New York Times to court over a piece it published denouncing allegedly widespread sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar have ordered the “initiation of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times”, according to a joint statement issued by their offices.

The offices said that the piece by Nicholas Kristof, a prominent opinion columnist, was “one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper”.

Mr. Kristof’s investigation is based on testimonies gathered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from 14 men and women who said that they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces.

The report described “a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards”.

The New York Times responded that any legal claim over the “deeply reported opinion column” lacked merit.

“This threat, similar to one made last year, is part of a well-worn political playbook that aims to undermine independent reporting and stifle journalism that does not fit a specific narrative,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the newspaper, said in a statement.

Mr. Kristof’s piece said there was no evidence that Israeli leaders ordered rapes.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry alleged that Mr. Kristof had based his piece “on unverified sources tied to Hamas-linked networks”.

It also accused the paper of deliberately timing the publication to “undermine” an independent Israeli report on Hamas sexual violence perpetrated during its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which was published on the same day.

Israeli forces have detained thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank since Hamas’s 2023 attack, which triggered the war in Gaza.

The United States has high protections for journalistic expression, with libel suits needing to prove that information was purposefully untrue and with harmful intent.

President Donald Trump and his allies have nonetheless filed a number of lawsuits against media outlets, some of which have reached settlements rather than risk repercussions from his administration.