Statements made by President Donald Trump on the campaign trail again dominated a judicial proceeding over his temporary travel ban, this time  on Monday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall argued that judges should not try to get in the heads of Trump and other federal officials who drafted a March executive order placing a 90-day freeze on travelers coming from six majority-Muslim nations that either sponsor terrorism or have governments too weak to aid U.S. officials in conducting background checks.

“The order, on its face, doesn’t have anything to do with religion.”

Notwithstanding Trump’s 2015 call for a “total shutdown” of Muslims entering the country, Wall argued, the judges should examine the wording of the order itself.

“The order, on its face, doesn’t have anything to do with religion,” he said.

But Neal Katyal, a lawyer arguing the case for the state of Hawaii, maintained that the March executive order is not substantially different from an earlier version blocked by a different three-judge panel of the appellate court. He said the judges hearing Monday’s case are bound by that ruling in the suit, filed by the states of Washington and Minnesota.

“The government would like to pretend that this court’s decision in Washington v. Trump never happened,” he said. “But it did, and the government can’t shut its eyes to it.”

In addition to campaign statements, Katyal argued, Trump tipped his hand in statements he has made since becoming president. He noted that the president, when he signed the first executive order, said, “We all know what that means.”

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Katyal also noted that Trump, until recently, left the Muslim ban proposal on his campaign website.

“You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to uphold the district court’s decision,” he said.

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It is the second time this month that an appeals court has considered the travel ban. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 8 heard arguments on a different lawsuit over the order.

The judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, all three of whom are Bill Clinton appointees, expressed some skepticism of Hawaii’s position.

“Why shouldn’t we be deferential to the office of the president of the United States?” asked Judge Michael Hawkins.

Judge Richard Paez, considered the most liberal of the three, at one point questioned how prominently campaign statements should factor into the court’s deliberations.

“It is a little bit concerning, though, that those statements take place in the midst of a highly contentious campaign,” he said. “Don’t you need to look at it from that standpoint as well?”

Katyal argued that the record contains ample evidence of the president’s true intent.

“We give you chapter and verse the things the president has said,” he said. “The district court gives them to you as well.”

Katyal acknowledged that the exact same executive order would be legal if a different president had ordered it.

“I think it would be different,” he said. “Context matters.”

Katyal suggested Congress could pass a law achieving the same objectives. Alternatively, he said, Trump could formally disavow his past statements and take other steps to make clear that he was not targeting the Muslim faith.

Wall argued that Trump already has disavowed them, both during the campaign and since. He said Trump zeroed in on “extreme vetting” and a desire to target Islamic terror groups and countries that shelter them.

Paez also pressed Wall, suggesting that the government’s interpretation of presidential authority is extremely broad. Wall noted that the administration of Barack Obama made efforts to slow down issuing visas to Iraq over the same terrorism concerns. He said Trump’s order is broader but involves the same principles.

“I don’t think it’s a difference in kind with what the previous administration did,” he said.

Judge Ronald Gould at one point asked Wall: “How is the court supposed to know if it is a Muslim ban in the guise of national security justification?”

Wall responded, “That’s the nub of the case.”

Wall argued that the plaintiffs have not sufficiently established that they even have the right to pursue the case in court. He noted that Ismail Elshikh, the imam of a Honolulu mosque, sued on behalf of his mother-in-law’s application for a visa from Syria. Wall said it is premature since the woman has not even been denied and likely would qualify for a waiver.

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“He’s attempting to raise an establishment clause claim on behalf of someone else,” he said. “That’s not proper.”

The lawyers also addressed a legal dispute over two separate immigration-related statutes. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 gives the president broad authority to block entry of foreigners he deemed detrimental to America. But a 1960s law prohibits discrimination based on national original in issuing visas.

Katyal said finding for the government would “transform the statutes into mere suggestions.”

But Wall said the 1960s law did not repeal the 1952 statute. He argued that plaintiffs would construe the statute as meaning that a president could not temporarily block Syrians even if he has actionable intelligence that a Syrian terrorist is trying to enter America but he does not know that person’s identity. He said Congress intended to change the immigration system, not take away the president’s ability to confront threats from abroad.

“Courts have never read the statutes to conflict in that way,” he said.