White House calls on Mike Johnson to ‘move on’ and end Biden impeachment inquiry – live

A judge in Georgia has ruled that the district attorney Fani Willis can continue to head the prosecution of Donald Trump for trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election in the state, as long as a top deputy steps down.

The ruling came after hearings that offered a dramatic deviation from the racketeering case against Trump and 14 remaining co-defendants as it investigated Willis’s romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the case.

The question at the heart of the matter was whether Willis had a conflict of interest in the case because of her relationship with Wade. Michael Roman, one of the 14 remaining defendants in the case, filed a motion in January saying Willis should be disqualified from handling the case because of her romantic relationship with Wade, which was not publicly known at the time.

The two eventually admitted their relationship, but said it did not begin until 2022, after Wade was hired to work on the Trump case. Wade acknowledged that he paid for vacations for the two of them to places such as Napa in California and Aruba, but he and Willis both said she paid him back in cash.

The hearing dived deeply into the personal lives of Wade and Willis, and featured dramatic testimony from Willis in which she bluntly accused Roman’s lawyers of lying and sought to regain control over one of the most high-stakes trials in the US.

A judge has ruled that the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, should not be disqualified from prosecuting the racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants.

Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis can continue leading the prosecution of Trump and his allies in Georgia, but only if her former romantic partner, Nathan Wade, withdraws as the lead prosecutor of the case.

McAfee found there was no “actual conflict” brought about by the relationship between Willis and Wade, but that the “appearance of impropriety” should result in either Willis and her office leaving the case, or Wade. The judge added:

Without sufficient evidence that the District Attorney acquired a personal stake in the prosecution, or that her financial arrangements had any impact on the case, the Defendants’ claims of an actual conflict must be denied.

White House counsel Ed Siskel’s letter to the House speaker, Mike Johnson, calls on House Republicans drop their efforts to impeachment Joe Biden and “not continue to waste time on political stunts”.

Siskel writes that House Republicans have spent more than a year investigating Biden in an “effort to find something – anything – to hurt the president politically”, but that the investigation “has continually turned up evidence that, in fact, the president did nothing wrong”. He writes:

The House Majority has reportedly collected more than 100,000 pages of records, interviewed dozens of witnesses, and held multiple public hearings – but none of the evidence has demonstrated that the President did anything wrong. In fact, it has shown the opposite of what House Republicans have claimed.

“It is obviously time to move on, Mr Speaker,” Siskel wrote.

This impeachment is over. There is too much important work to be done for the American people to continue wasting time on this charade.

Good morning US politics readers. The White House has urged the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to end impeachment efforts against Joe Biden, arguing in a letter that House Republicans’ months-long effort to uncover wrongdoing by the president has come up empty.

Writing to Johnson, White House counsel Ed Siskel said it is “obviously time to move on”, noting that testimony and records turned over to the House oversight and judiciary committees have “turned up evidence that … the president did nothing wrong”. The four-page letter comes as the Republican impeachment drive has come to a near-standstill after the indictment of a key witness on charges of making up allegations against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and amid a tenuous House Republican majority.

Here’s what else we’re watching:

• 10am. The supreme court will convene for a public non-argument session.

• 10.30am. Joe Biden will host Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of Ireland for a bilateral meeting

• 12pm. Mike Johnson will host Biden and Varadkar for the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon at the Capitol.

• 12.30pm. Biden will deliver remarks at the Friends of Ireland Luncheon at US Capitol.

• 1.25pm. Kamala Harris will convene roundtable conversation about marijuana reform with artist and philanthropist Fat Joe and Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear.

• 2.30pm. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will give a briefing.

• 7.30pm. Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr will attend a private dinner and conversation fundraiser in Austin, Texas.