The Trump administration on Monday asked a federal appeals court to freeze an ongoing anti-corruption lawsuit against President Donald Trump, as part of a bid to stop a pair of state attorneys general from being able to peruse Trump’s business records.

The Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to pause proceedings in the case while it challenges a series of rulings by a federal trial court judge in Maryland. Monday’s filing said U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte’s earlier order rejecting a request to dismiss the complaint was “clear legal error” and called his refusal to certify an immediate appeal “a manifest abuse of discretion.”