McCarthy said the House investigation has found a "culture of corruption" around the Biden family. The announcement from the GOP leader comes as he faces mounting pressure from some House Republicans to take action against Biden.
“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption, and they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said outside the speaker's office at the Capitol. "That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.”
Biden’s White House has dismissed the impeachment push as politically motivated.
House Republicans are probing the business dealings of Hunter Biden. They have already shown a few instances largely during the time the elder Biden was Barack Obama's vice president when he spoke by phone with his son and stopped by dinners his son was hosting with business partners.
Biden has claimed he knew nothing about his son's business dealings.
Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman leading the Oversight Committee, is digging into the Biden family finances and is expected to seek banking records for Hunter Biden as the panel tries to follow the flow of money.
On Tuesday, Comer demanded the State Department produce documents about the work Biden did as vice president during the Obama administration to clean up corruption in Ukraine. Comer wants to understand the State Department's views of former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin who was investigating possible criminal activity in a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. Biden has bragged publicly about how he had Shokin fired as a condition of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Hunter Biden just happened to be on the board of Burisma at the time of that firing.
