Make no mistake: This suit may well fail. If it does, it could help Trump, taking emoluments off the table as grounds for impeachment and allowing his administration to dismiss the issue as fatuous harassment. Democrats would lose a potent rallying cry, and the emoluments criticism would fade from the political arena. The suit is an audacious gamble; it could certainly backfire. But even if it does, it will have a silver lining—functioning as the opening volley in a sustained assault on Trump’s unlawful conflicts of interest.

CREW’s first hurdle is the sheer novelty of its claim. The Emoluments Clause has never before been tested in court—although the legal luminaries who joined CREW’s complaint appear convinced that judicial intervention is necessary. Eminent constitutional law professors Laurence Tribe and Zephyr Teachout , as well as Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California–Irvine School of Law, are participating in the suit; so is Deepak Gupta, a Supreme Court advocate of considerable renown.

Matz hopes that the court finds Trump in violation of the Emoluments Clause and orders him to fully divest from his business; any other result, he said, would allow the president to maintain “financial interests that inevitably blur his loyalty with regard to foreign powers.” But that leads to CREW’s second big hurdle: The courts may decide that they have no business passing judgment on the president’s conflicts of interest, maintaining that they involve an inherently political question that courts are ill-suited to decide.

“This is a perfect example of something where the courts are quite ready to weigh in,” he said. “It’s clear that the old approach—treating every politically sensitive question as a potential ‘political question’—is gone. Once we get to the merits, the court will not say, ‘Ah, but we can’t decide that question; it’s only for Congress to decide.’ The Constitution states very clearly that foreign emoluments are absolutely forbidden unless Congress chooses to give its consent. And Congress has not given consent.”

“We are a country dedicated to the rule of law,” he said, “and those who spend their lives trying to interpret and understand and enforce the law naturally look at whether this is something we can get judicial help with.”

“We want Trump to have the best interests of America at stake,” Tribe said, “and there’s no way of ensuring that under the current circumstances. He has divided loyalty. Right now, every time Trump makes a decision involving any of the dozens of countries where he has hotels or other enterprises, we can’t know what motivated it. Was it a desire to have better business relations with that country? A response to how much that country greased his palm? Or a desire to do what’s best for America?”

“Litigation can help bring important principles to light,” he said. “It helps me teach my students, and it performs an educational function vis-à-vis the public. Of course, I don’t take on causes that I feel confident I will lose purely for educational purposes. But win or lose, we’re going to help educate the public on something that’s very important.”

The emoluments fight may quickly run into a brick wall. Or it may lead to a court order forcing Trump to divest from his businesses. Either way, the Trump administration will be on notice that his constitutional contraventions will not go unchallenged. With this suit, Tribe, CREW, and the lawyers of the resistance have effectively given Trump an ultimatum: Comply with the Constitution, or we’ll see you in court.