Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for D.C. May 27, 2009. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will now decide whether Democrats' lawsuit alleging President Donald Trump is violating the Constitution's emoluments clause can advance after a district judge stayed his own ruling Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia granted the Justice Department's request to stay the lawsuit and allow the circuit court to review his previous rulings that found the case could move forward.

Sullivan cited a July circuit court decision that found he improperly dismissed DOJ's motion for the appeals court to take a second look at his prior rulings in the case, with the panel pointing specifically to separation of powers issues raised by the lawsuit.

More than 200 Democratic members of Congress first filed the lawsuit in District Court for the District of Columbia in 2017, and Sullivan scrutinized whether the lawmakers have standing to sue the president in an individual capacity.

He previously found that the lawmakers could sue and ordered the case to advance to discovery. Democrats issued subpoenas to several of Trump's private businesses, including the Trump Organization, as a result of Sullivan's rulings.

The Trump Justice Department still sought to stall the case, asking Sullivan in May to grant a motion for interlocutory appeal that would allow the circuit court to review his rulings. Sullivan denied that request.

DOJ then filed a petition for writ of mandamus to the circuit court in July. While the court denied the petition, the panel wrote they believed "the district court abused its discretion by concluding that an immediate appeal would not advance the ultimate termination of the litigation just because discovery and summary judgment briefing could proceed expeditiously."

Sullivan pointed to that finding in his order Wednesday, which tosses out his previous rulings that advanced the case. The judge previously halted discovery in the lawsuit after the circuit judges sent the decision on whether to grant the interlocutory appeal back down to his court.

Sullivan also wrote in his opinion that the Democrats' suggestion that the case could skip discovery and go to a fast-tracked briefing schedule for summary judgement "would be inconsistent with the remand order from the D.C. Circuit."

Elizabeth Wydra, president of the Constitutional Advocacy Center which is representing Democrats in the suit, said in a statement that they are not deterred by the ruling.

"We look forward to making our case in the D.C. Circuit on behalf of more than 200 Members of Congress that President Trump continues to violate the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause and should be ordered to stop doing so as expeditiously as possible," she said.

Trump has faced scrutiny from Democrats over whether he is violating the emoluments clause by continuing to maintain ownership in his private businesses while in office.

The clause states that Congress must approve any foreign gifts received by a president, and lawmakers in this case allege that they have been deprived of this opportunity to review foreign profits Trump has pocketed.

The Justice Department argues that the earnings do not constitute an emolument, and are therefore not reviewable by Congress.

A panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed another emoluments lawsuit earlier this year. The judges found that the attorneys general for Maryland and D.C., who brought the complaint, did not have standing to sue Trump.