A federal judge in Baltimore on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration's effort to shield information it used to implement its ban on transgender troops.

U.S. Magistrate Judge A. David Copperthite rejected the government's assertion that the “deliberative process privilege” justified shielding the information.

In the lawsuit, Stone v. Trump, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is representing six current members of the armed forces who are transgender. The ACLU has argued that the ban violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection and substantive due process as well as the statutory right to medical care that all service members enjoy.

Stone is one of several lawsuits challenging the ban, which Trump announced on Twitter in July, 2017. Judges in those cases have blocked the Pentagon from implementing a ban.

Trump has claimed that the Obama administration “failed to identify a sufficient basis” to end the military ban – which was rolled back in June, 2016 – and he ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the policy, arguing that transgender people are a “disruption” to the military.

Judge Copperthite said that the documents were critical in understanding the Trump administration's intent and “whether [the ban] was purely for political and discriminatory purposes.”

Joshua Block, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project, said that Tuesday's decision “makes clear that the Trump Administration cannot continue to hide the true reasons behind its crusade to purge transgender people from the military.”

“President Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military and then ordered the Department of Defense to come up with pretext to justify that discriminatory decision,” Block said in a statement. “These brave men and women should be able to continue serving their country ably and honorably without being discriminated against by their own commander in chief.”