Washington (CNN) A federal judge in Maryland on Wednesday denied a motion to dismiss portions of a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump, through his Trump International Hotel in DC and the Trump Organization, violated a constitutional clause banning gifts or advantages from foreign and domestic governments. 
 
 In his opinion, Judge Peter Messitte of the US District Court of Maryland largely sided with Maryland and Washington, DC's definition of emolument as an "advantage." Trump was arguing for a more restrictive definition of the term as a "gift." 
 
 Department of Justice spokesman Andy Reuss said the department is reviewing the judge's order. 
 
 "We continue to maintain that this case should be dismissed, a position that was shared by a New York court in a related case. The Justice Department is reviewing the order and determining next steps to continue vigorously defending the President," Reuss said. 
 
 Maryland and Washington, DC, have argued that the Trump International Hotel's operations put other nearby hotels and entertainment properties at a competitive disadvantage, and that the Trump Hotel got special tax concessions. 
 
 Messitte deferred a ruling on the President's motion to dismiss the case against him in an individual capacity. However, the court is still considering whether he violated the emoluments clause in an official cap acity. 
 
 The ruling is on the President's lawyers motion to dismiss an amended lawsuit from Washington, DC, and Maryland. An earlier motion to dismiss was also rejected. 
 
 Wednesday's order directs parties to confer and produce a proposal on next steps for the discovery process, which may include producing tax returns, Raquel Coombs, the director of communications for Maryland's Office of the Attorney General, told CNN. 
 
 #BREAKING: Judge allows our #emoluments case to proceed. 
 
 
 
 We are one step closer to stopping President Trump from violating the Constitution's original anti-corruption provisions. 
 
 
 
 Stay tuned—more to come. 
 
 
 
 Thanks to AG @BrianFrosh and co-counsel @CREWcrew. pic.twitter.com/LS474xr2vN — AG Karl A. Racine (@AGKarlRacine) July 25, 2018 
 
 District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine tweeted that the new developments mean "we are one step closer to stopping President Trump from violating the Constitution's original anti-corruption provisions." 
 
 In a statement later Wednesday, Racine said the court specifically agreed with the plaintiffs' position "that President Trump cannot accept profits from private transactions, including those involving services given at fair market value, like those we allege are occurring at the Trump International Hotel here in the District." 
 
 Racine added that this marked the first time a court has interpreted the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses. 
 
 Interpreting the emoluments clause 
 
 In his opinion, Messitte expansively read the term "emolument" in the Constitution to cover, and ultimately ban, the President from receiving "anything more than de minimis profit, gain, or advantage" in his private capacity. 
 
 Messitte based his interpretation on the constitutional text of the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses and his reading of the framers' intentions, along with dictionaries and other outside sources. 
 
 Addressing the words of the provisions themselves, he wrote, "The text of both (Foreign and Domestic Emoluments) Clauses strongly indicates that the broader meaning of 'emolument' advanced by Plaintiffs was meant to apply. As Plaintiffs point out, the Foreign Clause bans, without Congressional approval, 'any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.' Use of such expansive modifiers significantly undermines the President's argument that this Clause was meant to prohibit only payment for official services rendered in an employment-type relationship." 
 
 Messitte said the use of "any kind whatever" was intended to ensure the broader meaning of the emolument term. 
 
 He said Trump's narrower definition of emoluments would essentially prohibit only outright bribes. 
 
 "The President's interpretation of the limited meaning of the Emoluments Clauses cannot be the correct one," Messitte wrote. It "would reduce the Clauses to little more than a prohibition of bribery which, in addition to already being addressed elsewhere in the Constitution, is ... a very difficult crime to prove." 
 
 Messitte also rejected arguments from the President's lawyers that such a broad interpretation would create absurd consequences. 
 
 "For example," the judge wrote, "he claims that if the Court were to adopt Plaintiff's interpretation, it would mean that a federal official's stock holdings in a global company would violate the Foreign Emoluments Clause if some of that company's earnings could be traced to foreign governments. ... Notwithstanding the parade of horribles the President calls up, the Court does not see how the historical record reflects anything other than an intention that the Emoluments Clauses function as broad anti-corruption provisions." 
 
 Correction: The headline and first paragraph of this story have been corrected to reflect that the Trump Organization and Trump International Hotel are not named parties in the lawsuit against the President. ||||| A federal judge ruled that the District of Columbia and Maryland may proceed with a lawsuit against President Trump alleging that Trump’s business dealings have violated the Constitution’s ban on receiving improper “emoluments,” or payments, from individual states and foreign governments. 
 
 The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Maryland, marks the first time that a lawsuit of this kind has cleared the initial legal hurdle — a finding that the plaintiffs have legal standing to sue the president. 
 
 In his opinion, Messitte gave credence to arguments by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) and Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) that Trump unfairly profits from business at downtown Washington’s Trump International Hotel, in which the president continues to hold a financial interest. 
 
 Messitte cited examples of government clients — including Kuwait and Bahrain — 
 
 patronizing the Washington hotel, possibly to the detriment of competitors and taxpayers. He wrote that Maryland and the District had sufficiently argued that Trump’s hotel “has had and almost certainly will continue to have an unlawful effect on competition.” 
 
 As part of that ruling, Messitte said he rejected an argument made by critics of the lawsuit — that, under the Constitution, only Congress may decide whether the president has violated the emoluments clauses. 
 
 “In absence of Congressional approval, this Court holds that it may review the actions of the President to determine if they comply with the law,” Messitte wrote. 
 
 If the ruling stands, it could allow Racine and Frosh to seek internal documents from the Trump Organization to determine how much money the Washington hotel has taken in from state and foreign governments. 
 
 Messitte’s ruling largely narrowed the lawsuit’s scope to the Washington hotel, saying that the District and Maryland had standing to sue because they could plausibly claim to have been injured by Trump’s receipt of payments from foreign and state governments. 
 
 For one thing, he said, the two jurisdictions have financial interests in their own convention centers — one in downtown Washington, another in Bethesda, Md. They argued that the Trump hotel had an unfair advantage in the battle for meeting business. 
 
 In addition, the court said, the District and Maryland could speak on behalf of their own businesses, which might also see clients lured away by the chance to do business with the president. 
 
 “The Court concludes that [the District and Maryland] are, quite plausibly, trying to protect a large segment of their commercial residents and hospitality industry employees from economic harm,” he wrote. 
 
 Messitte also raised examples of state governments having to make decisions related to the president’s company, which Frosh and Racine termed an “intolerable dilemma” between losing revenue or risking repercussions from the president. The judge cited a decision by District tax officials to lower the Trump hotel’s tax bill by nearly $1 million and a $6 million tax break being granted to a Trump-affiliated development by Mississippi officials. 
 
 The Justice Department, which is representing the president in this case, did not immediately say whether it would appeal. “As we argued, we believe this case should be dismissed, and we will continue to defend the president in court,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. 
 
 After consulting with attorneys, Trump vowed last year to donate some profits from foreign governments to the U.S. treasury. This month the Trump Organization said it donated $151,470 but declined to explain how it came up with the amount. 
 
 Although Trump said he gave up day-to-day management of his business while he is in the White House, he still owns his businesses and can withdraw money from them at any time. 
 
 A statement from the Trump Organization said: “While the Trump Organization is not a party to the lawsuit, the Court’s decision today does significantly narrow the scope of the case. The Court has yet to rule on several additional arguments, which we believe should result in a complete dismissal.” 
 
 In an interview, Frosh said that “overall we are extremely pleased” and that he and Racine would be seeking the president’s financial documents and tax returns as the case proceeded. 
 
 “The basic principle here is Donald Trump is not above the law, and the court recognized that and said that we can enforce the nation’s original anti-corruption law — the emoluments clause,” he said. 
 
 This case was filed last year, one of a raft of lawsuits in the months after Trump’s inauguration, all of them alleging that he was violating the Constitution’s emoluments clauses. 
 
 Those clauses were dusty corners of the Constitution, rarely tested in court during 240-plus years of American history. 
 
 One bars federal officers from taking presents, or emoluments, from foreign governments. The other prohibits presidents from taking side payments from individual states. 
 
 In these lawsuits, the plaintiffs allege that Trump violated one or both of these bans, because foreign and state governments have rented hotel rooms or banquet halls at his businesses. 
 
 Trump’s attorneys have said that the term “emolument” was never meant to cover transactions such as this — not outright gifts to the president but purchases made at fair-market value. 
 
 The first step in all these cases has been an argument over what lawyers call “standing” — in essence, determining whether the plaintiff has a right to sue. 
 
 In December, for instance, a federal judge threw out one of the emoluments lawsuits, brought by the nonprofit watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 
 
 U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels ruled that the watchdog group lacked standing. He stated that the Constitution gave Congress — and only Congress — the right to enforce these rules. 
 
 “As the only political branch with the power to consent to violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Congress is the appropriate body to determine whether, and to what extent, Defendant’s conduct unlawfully infringes on that power,” Daniels wrote in his ruling. 
 
 The case involving the District and Maryland had a hearing earlier this year before Messitte at a federal court in Greenbelt, Md. 
 
 In that hearing, the Justice Department, arguing on Trump’s behalf, made a similar argument in an effort to throw out the attorney generals’ suit. Brett Shumate, a Justice Department lawyer, said that states such as Maryland had no right to sue Trump over these clauses. 
 
 “The states are not roving constitutional watchdogs,” Shumate said. He continued: “This is ultimately a political dispute. It should be left to the political process.” 
 
 In his ruling Wednesday, Messitte rejected that idea. 
 
 “The thrust of the President’s argument that only Congress can act is particularly concerning,” he wrote in a footnote. “Suppose a majority (simple? two-thirds?) of Congress (the House? the Senate? both?) is controlled by one party — that of the President. And suppose the Congress never undertakes to approve or disapprove the President’s receipt of such ‘emoluments.’ ” 
 
 “The President could continue to receive unlimited ‘emoluments’ from foreign and state governments without the least oversight and with absolute impunity,” Messitte wrote.
– An emoluments lawsuit against President Trump is moving forward after a federal judge ruled Wednesday that attorneys general from Maryland and Washington DC have legal standing to proceed, the AP reports. According to the Washington Post, it's the first time such a lawsuit has ever made it past its first legal test. Two other emoluments lawsuits were tossed by a judge in New York in December, CNN reports. Attorneys general Karl Racine and Brian Frosh accuse Trump of violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by receiving illegal gifts from foreign governments via the Trump Organization. While Judge Peter Messitte of the US District Court of Maryland is allowing the lawsuit to move forward, he's limiting its scope to just the Trump International Hotel in DC, excluding Mar-a-Lago and other properties. The lawsuit accuses Trump International of getting special tax concessions and having a competitive advantage over other hotels. Messitte noted that foreign governments have moved their business from other DC hotels to the "President's Hotel." He ruled that Trump's other properties are too far away to have any financial impact on Maryland or DC. While Messitte did not rule on the allegations themselves, he did reject an argument from the Trump camp that only Congress can decide if a president has violated the Emoluments Clause.