Over a period of less than 48 hours, a Wisconsin special prosecutor’s probe into alleged campaign finance improprieties by Gov. Scott Walker and outside conservative groups has been alive, then dead, then alive again and then dead once more.

The latest twists came late Wednesday when a federal appeals court stayed a judge’s ruling Tuesday ordering the probe shut down. Then on Thursday, the judge issued a ruling in a related case which effectively nullified the court’s stay. That means that the probe is still under order to shut down, though the legal wrangling presumably isn’t over.