Speaker McCarthy is signaling he’s leaning toward opening an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over unverified allegations of financial misconduct by the president’s family, in particular Hunter Biden and the president himself.

Speaking on Fox News Monday evening, Mr. McCarthy said he believes that the president’s alleged involvement in his son’s foreign business deals and the alleged slow-walking of a Department of Justice investigation into the younger Mr. Biden could soon make an impeachment investigation the necessary next step.

“This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed because this president has also used something that we have not seen since Richard Nixon, used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have the oversight,” Mr. McCarthy said.

The speaker went further at a press conference Tuesday, saying “the only way you can investigate that is through an impeachment inquiry so the committee would have the power to get all the documents that they would need.”

Mr. McCathy sidestepped questions about the justice department’s handling of the allegations during the Trump administration and denied that he was raising the issue of impeachment under pressure from House conservatives. 

“Congress has a responsibility for an investigation wing,” Mr. McCarthy said. “All I’m saying is — and I’m sure you’d probably ask the same question — where’s the truth?”

A White House spokesman, Ian Sams, immediately responded to Mr. McCarthy’s comments, writing in a tweet, “Their eagerness to go after” Mr. Biden “regardless of the truth is seemingly bottomless.”

“Instead of focusing on the real issues Americans want us to address like continuing to lower inflation or create jobs, this is what the House GOP wants to prioritize,” Mr. Sams said.

Mr. McCarthy’s comments come after more House Republicans joined the call for impeachment, with Representatives Jim Banks and Lauren Boebert teeing up the possibility last week and Congressman Andy Biggs saying Tuesday that a formal impeachment inquiry would help the House GOP “actually get more teeth into our investigations.”

Mr. Banks and Ms. Boebert called for impeachment after Senator Grassley released a FBI document from June 2020 in which an unidentified foreign informant made uncorroborated allegations to the agency that both Mr. Biden and his son received a bribe relating to the younger Mr. Biden’s work with a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. 

The form, known as an FD-1023, is used to record unverified information from “confidential human sources.” Democratic lawmakers have produced evidence that appears to contradict the allegations made in the form.

“Contrary to Republican messaging, the form provides no new or additional support for their corruption allegations against the President or Hunter Biden. Instead, its release merely seeks to breathe new life into years-old conspiracy theories, initially peddled by Rudy Giuliani, that have been thoroughly debunked,” House Oversight Committee Democratic staff wrote in a memo to lawmakers this week.

In a significant development that could affect an impeachment inquiry, the New York Post reports that a former friend and business associate of the younger Mr. Biden, Devon Archer, is planning to testify to the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors. 

Archer is expected to testify on the younger Mr. Biden’s business deals in Ukraine, Russia, and China. Reportedly, Archer, who has pushed back his testimony to the end of July from mid-June, is expected to allege that the younger Mr. Biden would call his father to introduce him to business partners during meetings. 

If House Republicans did impeach the president, it would fulfill a goal that some of the party’s most conservative members have been talking about since the start of Mr. Biden’s term.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced numerous articles of impeachment against the president, including one on the day he took office and, ahead of the midterms, was fundraising on the promise to “IMPEACH, CONVICT, and REMOVE Biden from office,” as one fundraising email stated.

While impeachment has been a goal of many of the party’s members since before the midterms, Mr. McCarthy had previously publicly displayed some reluctance to impeach.

“I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” Mr. McCarthy said in an interview with Punchbowl News ahead of the midterms, adding that voters want to “start to see the system that actually works.”

The conservative focus on the younger Mr. Biden also grew when he agreed to a plea agreement on tax and firearms offenses that Mr. McCarthy denounced as a “sweetheart deal.”

For GOP voters, though, attempting to determine “whether Joe Biden should be impeached” is a top priority. A Morning Consult poll released July 10 found that it was the third most important issue to Republican voters.

The survey found that 55 percent of GOP voters thought it should be a “top priority.” Only fentanyl trafficking and American operations on the Mexico border were more important to Republican voters who spoke to the pollsters. For both of those issues, 63 percent of GOP voters said they considered the issue a top priority.

The fourth most important issue to Republican voters was “Hunter Biden’s finances,” which 46 percent of GOP voters consider a top priority.

For comparison, 30 percent of all voters — as opposed to just GOP voters — consider impeachment a top priority. Twenty-seven percent of all voters consider the younger Mr. Biden’s finances a top priority. Among independents, 24 percent consider each issue a top priority.