At an Oval Office event on Friday, Donald Trump was asked about his administration using the Alien Enemies Act to fly some non-criminals to a prison in El Salvador. “I was told that they went through a very strong vetting process,” the president replied.

For now, let’s put aside the fact that there’s an enormous difference between a vetting process and due process. For that matter, let’s also stick a pin in the very important conversation about the nature of the administration’s “very strong” vetting process and the degree to which it appears to have failed.

What also stood out for me about Trump’s answer, however, was the fact that he seemed to put some distance between himself and his policy. Instead of simply declaring that the White House did everything right, he said he was “told” — by whom, he didn’t say — that the process had merit.

Hours later, during a separate Q&A with reporters, the president went even further down the same road and suggested that he didn’t actually sign his own order invoking the Alien Enemies Act. NBC News reported:

Trump appeared to indicate [Friday] that he did not sign a proclamation last week that invoked the Alien Enemies Act his administration used to justify recent deportation flights that have since sparked an intense court fight. He made the remark after being asked about a federal judge’s concerns about his use of the wartime law to deport Venezuelan immigrants despite being ordered not to.

In his unscripted comments, the president told reporters, “I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it. Other people handled it.” The president then praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying, “He wanted them out, and we go along with that. We want to get criminals out of our country.”

Pressed for some kind of explanation, the White House later told CNN that Trump “was obviously referring to the original Alien Enemies Act that was signed back in 1798.”

Given the context, that was literally unbelievable. The exchange, which was on camera, clearly provided the necessary context: He was asked about the ongoing court case and the way in which his order was implemented.

The idea that Trump was saying he “didn’t sign” a federal law 227 years ago is plainly ridiculous.

But the fact that the president made these comments raised a variety of related questions. If, as Trump put it, he “didn’t sign” his own directive, why did the White House say he did? Did he use an autopen? Does the president, who routinely questions his immediate predecessor’s mental acuity, not remember the historically significant order he ostensibly signed a week earlier?

A Washington Post analysis asked a variety of related questions: “So what did happen? Did Trump misspeak? Is he trying to deflect responsibility for a decision under heavy legal scrutiny by suggesting he was merely following through on an idea proposed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio? And if he didn’t sign it, who — or what — did?”

I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of this one.