In Washington, D.C., an appeals court has ordered a federal judge to end his investigation into probable criminal contempt by Trump officials who deported dozens of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison last year in violation of a court ruling. Last March, Judge James Boasberg spurred a yearlong standoff with the Trump administration after he ordered federal immigration officials to halt the U.S. deportation flights bound for El Salvador, which they ignored. Boasberg then launched a probe into Trump administration officials, condemning their actions as unlawful. The ACLU’s Lee Gelernt, who is the lead attorney for the Venezuelan plaintiffs in the case, condemned Tuesday’s ruling by the appeals court as “a blow to the rule of law.” He said in a statement, “The stakes could not be higher if the executive branch is ultimately allowed to avoid accountability for deliberately violating a court order, especially one of this magnitude.”