RICHMOND, Va. A revised version of President Donald Trump s beleaguered travel ban on six Muslim-majority nations faced its biggest legal test yet on Monday, as the Department of Justice tried to convince a federal appeals court the restrictions are legal under the Constitution and the executives authority to set immigration policy.

The odds are not in the presidents favor, as 10 of the 13 judges who heard from lawyers from the government and the American Civil Liberties Union were appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit by Democratic presidents six of them by former President Barack Obama alone.

Nearly all of them had tough words for the federal government during the two-hour-plus hearing. And in the end, the final ruling may depend on whether a majority buys the Trump administrations defense that the presidents own anti-Muslim rhetoric during the campaign and after being sworn in shouldnt determine the orders legality.

We dont get to consider what was said here? asked U.S. Circuit Judge James Wynn, referring to Trump and his associates several statements pre- and post-election about the purpose of the travel ban.

The president has never repudiated the statements he made on a Muslim ban, said U.S. Circuit Judge Robert King, who pointed to Trumps own campaign website, which once called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, as an indication of the intent behind the travel ban.

(Strangely, that campaign page appears to have been deleted just as the 4th Circuit was hearing oral arguments in the case.)