The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, claimed during a TV appearance on Monday that he expects a House GOP investigation into the foreign business activities of Joe Biden’s family to rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry.

“When Biden was running for office, he told the public he has never talked about business. He said his family has never received a dollar from China – which we prove is not true,” McCarthy said during an appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Monday night.

“We’ve only followed where the information has taken us. But, Hannity, 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.”

McCarthy cited two IRS whistleblowers who alleged prosecutors dragged their feet on an investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax law violations and referenced findings of House GOP investigations that millions of foreign funds passed to Biden family members and associates through shell companies.

The White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, Ian Sams, tweeted in response to McCarthy’s comments: “Instead of focusing on the real issues Americans want us to address like continuing to lower inflation or create jobs, this is what the HouseGOP wants to prioritize. Their eagerness to go after POTUS regardless of the truth is seemingly bottomless.”

The claim of a looming impeachment inquiry comes after Senator Chuck Grassley and the House oversight committee chairman, James Comer, released an FBI form containing unverified allegations of corruption related to Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma, a Ukraine-based energy company.

On Monday, the New York Post reported that Hunter Biden’s former best friend Devon Archer is expected to testify to Congress this week that Hunter would dial-in his father, who was serving as vice-president at the time, into meetings with business partners overseas.

Archer is currently facing jail time for his role in a $60m bond fraud scheme after losing an appeal of his sentence last month.

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, denied President Biden was ever in business with his son during a Monday briefing.

Last month, McCarthy also issued a threat of an impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland, the attorney general, over Garland’s contradiction of claims by IRS whistleblowers concerning the authority the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden had to bring charges in other jurisdictions.

The prosecutor, David Weiss, disputed claims he sought and was denied special counsel status to pursue a case into Hunter Biden. On Monday, Weiss was offered to provide testimony in a letter to the House judiciary committee chair, Jim Jordan, by the assistant attorney general Carlos Uriarte.