Mitch Mcconnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said he would hold a trial in the Senate if the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump.
“I would have no choice but to take it up,” Mr Mcconnell said. “How long you’re on it is a whole different matter, but I would have no choice . . . based on a Senate rule.”
Mr Mcconnell spoke as the House conducted an impeachment inquiry sparked by a whistleblower’s complaint about a July 25 phone call in which Mr Trump pressed the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, the former US vice-president running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
Under the US constitution, Mr Trump would be removed from office if he is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.
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The White House and other government departments came under further scrutiny on Monday following reports that officials had restricted access to the transcript of a call between Mr Trump and Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister.
Mr Trump said William Barr, US attorney-general, needed Australia’s help in a review the president hopes will discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
Mr Morrison offered Canberra’s assistance in the call weeks before the Australian leader visited the US last month, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. Joe Hockey, Australia’s ambassador to the US, also wrote to Mr Barr in May to say his country would support the White House probe.
“The Australian government has always been ready to assist and co-operate with efforts that help shed further light on the matters under investigation,” an Australian government spokesman said when asked about the phone call.
“The PM confirmed this readiness once again in conversation with the president.”
The phone call was first reported by the New York Times.
The US justice department did not respond to a request for comment. Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary, said: “We don’t comment on how classified information is handled.”
The Washington Post reported that Mr Barr met foreign intelligence officials — from the UK, Australia and Italy — to gather material for the inquiry. US media also reported that Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, was one of the US officials who was listening on the line when Mr Trump spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart on July 25.
The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed Mr Pompeo for documents related to its impeachment inquiry. A spokesman for the House panel declined to say how it would handle the revelations about Mr Barr.
The House intelligence committee on Monday also issued a subpoena for Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and personal lawyer for Mr Trump, to produce documents in the case.
In a letter to Mr Giuliani, Adam Schiff, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said it was conducting “an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the president in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the office of the president”.
