But the change appears to also reflect White House limits on journalists that have included excluding certain news organizations from closed briefings and events and imposing a new set of rules and restrictions at the Pentagon that drove most of the reporters who work there to turn in their media badges and cover the military from outside the headquarters building.

President Donald Trump has also floated the possibility of moving the press corps off the White House grounds.

“We have an option here,” Trump said earlier this month. “We could move them very easily across the street.”

Under the new rules, reporters will maintain regular access to a separate office adjacent to the briefing room where lower-level communications staff are located, the memo said.

White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang said in a statement the new limits “hinder the press corps’ ability to question officials, ensure transparency, and hold the government accountable, to the detriment of the American public.”

In a social media post, Cheung justified the restrictions by claiming White House reporters have secretly recorded video and audio of the West Wing office, entered restricted rooms in the West Wing and eavesdropped on private meetings.

Earlier this year, the White House sought to ban the Associated Press from covering White House events after the news organization declined to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” following Trump’s executive order to change the name. A federal judge ruled the White House could not legally block AP from White House events, but the outlet’s access remains limited as the White House seeks an appeal.

Trump has separately pursued legal action against several media outlets he viewed as covering him and Republican allies unfavorably.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton banned reporters from that part of the West Wing, known as upper press, shortly after he entered the White House. But more recent administrations have allowed reporters to roam the area to speak with members of the communications staff.