Is Joe Biden finally about to face the first steps of impeachment? That’s what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled on Monday evening.

While appearing on Fox News, McCarthy laid out the case that Joe Biden accepted bribes and funneled money through a variety of shell companies. He then said at the end of the segment with Sean Hannity that “this is rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry.”

MCCARTHY: "This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry…" pic.twitter.com/NmXh6ATrEG

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 25, 2023

MCCARTHY: We would know none of this if Republicans had not taken the majority. We have only followed where the information has taken us, but 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 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.

McCarthy indicates that what they’ve learned so far rises to the level of an impeachment inquiry and that one will be necessary to garner relevant facts to continue the investigation. As he notes at the end of his statement, the Biden administration has stonewalled Congress to this point, and an impeachment inquiry will give them new powers to demand and receive information.

Still, some of what was said could be considered vague. McCarthy doubled down, though, later in his comments, saying definitively that “this is gonna rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry.”

MCCARTHY: I believe we will follow this all the way to the end, and this is gonna rise to an impeachment inquiry, the way the Constitution tells us to do this, and we have to get the answers to these questions.

That doesn’t sound like a statement McCarthy will have an easy time walking back if he didn’t actually mean it. With the FD-1023 form having been recently released and direct quotes tying Biden to the alleged bribery scheme at the center of all this, the Speaker would likely have a mutiny on his hands if he didn’t move forward at this point.

Past attempts to impeach Biden have been one-offs by individual congressional members. An impeachment inquiry with the backing of leadership is a completely different ballgame. Only by going through that process is there any chance of gaining majority support to adopt articles of impeachment.

This is a developing story. RedState will provide further updates if they become available.