The Justice Department has scored a rare win for President Trump's travel ban.

On Friday afternoon, a federal judge temporarily halted a lawsuit where the government has been strongly fighting to keep a key travel ban memo from being turned over to groups and individuals who are challenging the ban.

The memo, described by Rudolph Giuliani and others as having been prepared by him and others during Donald Trump's presidential campaign, has not previously been made public — and could provide new insights into how the ban came to be.



US District Judge Victoria Roberts had been considering a request to order the administration or Trump's presidential campaign to turn over the document, which allegedly formed the basis for turning the "Muslim ban" that Trump initially supported into the temporary travel ban and "extreme vetting" process Trump now supports.

On Friday, though, Roberts halted the case in which that issue was pending — meaning the memo will not be turned over to challengers of the ban any time soon.



Trump has issued two executive orders attempting to advance the policy, but both have been halted by the courts. The Supreme Court is considering currently whether to hear an appeal of a challenge to the ban and whether to allow the government to enforce the ban while it is hearing the appeal.



The Friday ruling, however, was in a different case, one out of Michigan. There, the Arab American Civil Rights League (AACRL) and other groups and individuals had been seeking discovery — evidence from the other side — in their challenge to the second version of the executive order. One of those documents is the so-called Giuliani memo.