WASHINGTON ― With calls for impeachment growing in the House Democratic Caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may finally have to escalate the standoff between Congress and the White House.

Pelosi has called a special meeting to brief her caucus Wednesday on the various efforts to oversee the Donald Trump administration, but it’s clear to many Democrats now that more ignored subpoenas and protracted court battles won’t resolve their issues anytime soon. Even though Pelosi has thus far resisted prodding from the most liberal Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings, she may soon have little choice but to move forward with an inquiry.

Such a move wouldn’t necessarily guarantee a vote in the House for impeachment, let alone an almost certainly doomed vote in the Senate. What an impeachment inquiry would do, however, is temporarily satiate those voices in the caucus calling for Trump’s removal. And it would give Democrats firmer standing for their subpoenas and requests to testify.

The Trump administration has argued it doesn’t have to comply with document demands for Trump’s tax returns or the unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller because Congress lacks a “legitimate legislative purpose” for those documents. The argument is legally tenuous already ― does the executive branch get to decide what is a legitimate legislative purpose? ― but it would be even harder for Trump’s lawyers to argue Congress can’t have these documents if they were in an impeachment stance.

That’s been the argument of some Democrats for weeks now. With voters continuing to call for Pelosi and House Democrats to move forward with impeachment, and with the Trump administration once again refusing to cooperate with investigations, opening an inquiry may be the new middle-of-the-road approach.

Democrats are at least considering it.

Close Pelosi ally Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) hasn’t made up her mind on impeachment, but she said Tuesday that the meeting this week would be an opportunity to hear the arguments in favor of beginning impeachment proceedings.

“I think he’s definitely committed impeachable offenses. The question is how do we proceed to follow up on all of the misdeeds we’ve seen,” Eshoo said. “And I think the American people also do need to understand how damning the Mueller report was.”

Another Pelosi ally, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), told HuffPost Tuesday that he thought 80 percent of the Democratic caucus would support moving forward with an impeachment inquiry, though he was careful to note how that was different from supporting impeachment.

“On the parts of the caucus that I have visibility into, this thing is fully ripe,” Huffman said. “But obviously there are layers to our caucus.”

Huffman said it was all right that Democratic leadership had thus far shown reluctance with impeachment. “This is an extraordinary thing, and there may be some value in the American people correctly perceiving that reluctance. But there’s a slippery slope between reluctance and endless dithering.”

While Pelosi has been unenthusiastic about moving forward with impeachment ― opting instead for more investigations ― the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with congressional oversight has put her in a position where she may soon have no choice but to ratchet up the pressure.

On Tuesday, former White House counsel Don McGahn declined to comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena to testify. McGahn is a key witness to Trump’s obstruction of justice, as the president instructed him to fire Mueller and then told him to lie about those orders. But the White House has claimed executive privilege over McGahn’s testimony. Coupled with Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to testify or furnish an unredacted copy of the Mueller report and the underlying evidence, the ignored subpoenas are severely testing the tolerance of Democrats.