The Appeals Court in DC just threw out Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg’s move to pursue criminal contempt charges against President Trump’s administration after he claims they defied his orders back in March when they deported illegals from Venezuela to El Salvador.

It was 2-1, with two Trump-appointed judges versus one Obama-appointed judge.

Here’s more from government-funded Politico:

A divided federal appeals court panel has thrown out U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s bid to pursue criminal contempt for Trump administration officials he says defied his orders in March by sending 130 Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador.

The ruling can be appealed further. If it remains in place, it appears to sharply diminish — but not completely rule out — the possibility that lawyers or other officials in the administration could face contempt charges over their conduct during the high-profile deportation showdown.

In the 2-1 decision Friday, D.C. Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao — both Trump appointees — overturned an order Boasberg issued in April initiating the potential contempt proceedings.

The episode began when President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime authority, to deport the Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison with just a few hours notice. When a handful of the men sued to block the deportations, Boasberg hastily convened a March 15 hearing and tried to halt them, saying they appeared to violate due process.

He ordered Justice Department lawyers to ensure that deportees who had already been loaded onto airplanes were not transferred out of U.S. custody. The administration nevertheless continued the deportations, deplaning the men before a bank of TV cameras that captured them being forcibly transferred to Salvadoran officials.

A month later, Boasberg found probable cause to hold the administration in contempt. The administration filed an unusual type of emergency appeal, arguing it had not defied Boasberg because his oral orders were not legally binding and he lacked authority over the planes once they left U.S. airspace.

The D.C. Circuit panel quickly paused Boasberg’s contempt-related order while the judges considered the administration’s appeal. And on Friday, the panel issued its formal ruling on the matter.

While both Katsas and Rao voted to “vacate” the contempt-related order, they disagreed about how far to go in limiting Boasberg’s future options. Katsas wrote in a solo opinion that he wanted to rule out any further criminal contempt proceedings stemming from the El Salvador deportations. Rao, by contrast, wrote her own solo opinion stopping short of foreclosing that possibility.

The third member of the appeals panel, Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee, dissented. She said the majority’s ruling was legally unjustified and “a grave disservice” to Boasberg.

The full 11-member bench of the D.C. Circuit — which has seven Democratic appointees and four Republican appointees — could reconsider the panel’s ruling and revive Boasberg’s contempt proceedings. Lawyers for the deported men, who have since been moved to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap brokered by the Trump administration, could also take the issue to the Supreme Court.

My guess is that this isn’t over and it will end up in the Supreme Court before too long.