The whipsaw declarations in less than 24 hours suggested major policy swings on national security matters of life and death, but the Justice Department appears to increasingly be doing the once-unthinkable: tuning out the president of the United States.

And in some proceedings, including over Trump’s travel ban orders, government lawyers have argued that informal statements, including by the president, “may not accurately reflect the government’s position.”…

Mary McCord, a former senior national security official at the Justice Department, said that “tweets and off-the-cuff statements make the jobs of career Justice Department people challenging. . . . Obviously, prosecutors don’t like to see people in positions of authority — including the president — commenting on possible penalties.’’