Acting Pentagon press secretary Jose Valdez said the change was necessary because the facility is now shared with speechwriters from the office that the administration refers to as the "War Department". According to Valdez, these speechwriters routinely work with classified material, which forces the space to meet SCIF security standards.
In a statement published on social media, Valdez said: "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."
