A lawsuit arguing that President Donald Trump is violating the Constitution’s anti-corruption clause will be allowed to proceed after it looked as good as dead just three months ago.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will re-hear the case, which has been brought by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh. Back in July, a panel of three judges dismissed the case.

Now, a majority of judges in the circuit voted to rehear the case after Racine and Frosh appealed the decision. This time the entire court bench, rather than a panel of judges, will decide on the outcome (this is called “en banc”). These kinds of hearings are generally reserved for particularly complex cases.

Racine and Frosh accuse the president of violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which holds that no public official “shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Before Trump took office, that clause was little-discussed, and no court has definitively outlined the meaning of the word “emolument.”

In their original suit, Racine and Frosh hold that a bevy of foreign leaders are spending money at Trump’s businesses—including the Trump International Hotel here in D.C.—in order to influence the president’s foreign policy decisions. Trump has declined to divest from his business interests as president. That, they said, constituted an emolument, which they defined as any “profit,” “gain,” or “advantage.”

The suit had been moving through the courts for nearly two years when the Fourth Circuit ruled in July that the attorneys general didn’t have standing to bring the case in the first place.

“The District and Maryland’s interest in enforcing the emoluments clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the President is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between the parties,” the three-judge panel wrote in a scathing decision.

But the most recent decision breathes new life into the lawsuit. Oral arguments are set for December 12.

“Today’s decision by the Fourth Circuit granting the District of Columbia and Maryland a rehearing in our anti-corruption case against President Trump is significant,” Racine and Frosh said in a joint statement. “We look forward to arguing our case before the full panel to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution and profiting from the presidency.”

Previously:
Appeals Court Sides With Trump In D.C.’s Emoluments Lawsuit
D.C. Attorney General May Gain Access To Trump’s Business Records, And He Wants To Make Them Public
D.C. And Maryland Are Suing Trump Over ‘Flagrantly’ Violating Constitution