The Supreme Court for the first time Wednesday began considering a major initiative of the Trump administration, asking skeptical questions of both sides on whether President Trump’s travel ban is a necessary step to protect the country from terrorism, or an illegal and unconstitutional fulfillment of campaign promises to ban Muslim immigrants.  Lower courts have struck down each of the three iterations of the president’s proclamation, the first of which was issued just a week after he took office in January 2017. But the conservative-leaning Supreme Court may be Trump’s best hope, and it gave the administration a boost by allowing the ban to go into effect in December while considering the challenges to it.