Jackson's ruling has also crystallized the next steps in the months-long legal battle over congressional access to Trump-affiliated witnesses, which got its biggest boost Monday when she issued her potentially precedent-setting decision.

In that 120-page opinion, Jackson said that Trump's advisers do not enjoy “absolute immunity” from facing lawmakers' questions about their work under oath. She found that “no one is above the law” and took issue with Trump’s efforts to stonewall congressional oversight via a blanket order directing aides not to testify.

“Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings,” Jackson wrote.

DOJ responded to Jackson's decision Tuesday by filing for a new hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In the meantime, it also covered its bases trying to ensure Jackson's order couldn't go into effect by filing an administrative stay petition to her and then sending a backup request Wednesday morning to the appellate court. The department's lawyers said their request for an emergency decision would give them enough time should they lose to petition to the Supreme Court.

In its stay petitions, DOJ has argued that it expects to succeed on appeal. It maintains that a president’s advisers are, indeed, “absolute immune” from a congressional subpoena. No binding federal appeals court decision has yet touched that question, the department said in its Tuesday legal filing.

“On an issue of this importance to the nation, it plainly serves the public interest to have the issues raised in this case resolved by an appellate tribunal,” DOJ wrote.

Jackson's terse ruling Wednesday on the administrative stay doesn't address DOJ's request for a full halt of her decision pending the outcome at the appellate court. If that pause is granted, McGahn’s lawyer have said he’ll wait to decide on whether to appear before the House panel until the case has been decided.

DOJ isn't taking any chances. In its separate emergency motion for a stay Wednesday with the D.C. Circuit asked the appellate panel to at least consider an administrative stay on Jackson's order "for a reasonable period to allow the Solicitor General an opportunity to seek relief from the Supreme Court."

The Justice Department's legal positioning comes amid an odd twist from Trump himself. On Tuesday, he tweeted that he "would actually like people to testify," but said he had resisted because he was "fighting for future Presidents."

Democrats are not on board with the Trump administration's attempts to postpone the favorable McGahn ruling. While they conceded in a Tuesday morning filing to accepting a seven-day administrative pause, the House lawyers filed a separate motion that night with Jackson opposing any longer-term stay. They agued that any further delay would “impair” the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry.

Additionally, the lawyers argued, McGahn’s testimony could also be used as part of the Senate’s impeachment trial if lawmakers cannot obtain testimony from McGahn before the House’s impeachment process wraps up at the end of the year.

“The committee is undertaking a fast-moving inquiry into whether President Trump has committed impeachable offenses, and McGahn is an eyewitness to some of the misconduct that the committee is investigating,” the lawyers wrote.

“Granting a stay could thwart the committee’s ability to conduct an impeachment inquiry based on all of the relevant evidence, which in turn could compromise the public’s faith in the process,” they added.

While the D.C. Circuit is not a friendly forum for Trump — it currently includes seven active judges appointed by Democratic presidents compared with four from Republicans — a temporary stay would be likely.

The same appellate court has already put an administrative stay on another lower court decision that Democrats should get access to some of Mueller's secret underlying evidence.

McGahn testified for 30 hours to the Mueller team and described multiple incidents where the president tried to either stymie or outright kill the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Democrats are now weighing whether to include articles of impeachment tied to the Mueller report, including one about potential obstruction of justice.

Jackson's ruling in the McGahn case also has been closely monitored for its potential ripple effect on the House impeachment probe examining the president's attempts to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations into Trump's political rivals.

In addition to his ex-White House counsel, Trump is also trying to block at least three senior aides from testifying to Congress — former national security adviser John Bolton, Bolton’s deputy, Charles Kupperman, and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. His attorneys have claimed all are “absolutely immune” from testifying in the impeachment probe.

Trump, however, appeared to complicate his claims on Tuesday with his tweets. He specifically said he would welcome testimony from McGahn and Bolton, but argued that he couldn't risk a damaging precedent from being set.

"It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere but, future Presidents should in no way be compromised. What has happened to me should never happen to another President!" Trump tweeted.

The House subpoenaed Kupperman but later withdrew its demand after he sued, asking a judge to decide whether he should comply with the subpoena or the White House orders.

Democrats accused Kupperman, and by extension Bolton, of a delay tactic, since court proceedings could take months. They instead urged the two men to honor Jackson’s ruling in the McGahn matter since it has always been expected this month.

On Tuesday, Charles Cooper, the attorney for both Kupperman and Bolton, said the duo would not voluntarily comply with Jackson’s decision.

In a statement, Cooper argued that the two cases were different because of Kupperman and Bolton's involvement in national security issues. He cited a prior court ruling that “national security” could be a valid reason to invoke the "absolute immunity" protection.

The McGahn ruling, he said, is not "authoritative on the validity of testimonial immunity for close White House advisors, like Dr. Kupperman, whose responsibilities are focused exclusively on providing information and advice to the president on national security."

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, is scheduled to hold a Dec.10. hearing on the Kupperman lawsuit.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this article.