Australia's role in sparking the FBI probe into links between Russia and US President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign is expected to be put under a blowtorch by a ramped-up US Justice Department criminal investigation.
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US Attorney-General William Barr was originally overseeing a Justice Department "administrative review" of the Russia investigation.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that probe has been elevated to a criminal inquiry.
The move provides prosecutor John Durham subpoena power for witness testimony, documents, to empanel a grand jury and file criminal charges.
Trump called Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison last month and asked for a point of contact between the Australian government and Barr.
Australian Ambassador to the US Joe Hockey confirmed on Thursday that Australia was co-operating with the probe.
"We've had a number of meetings and we've been as open and transparent as a very good partner would be," Hockey told the St Louis Post-Dispatch after giving a speech at Missouri's Westminster College.
A May 2016 meeting at a London bar between then Australian high commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, Australian official Erika Thompson and Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos will likely be a focus of the criminal investigation.
Downer claims Papadopoulos said during the brief gin and tonic drinks session Russia might use "damaging" material they had on Trump's presidential rival Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the November 2016 election.
Downer said he passed the highly sensitive information back to Canberra "the following day or a day or two".
US Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded in his final report into Trump-Russian ties the London bar meeting between Downer and Papadopoulos prompted the FBI to open its probe on July 31, 2016.
Trump has repeatedly branded the FBI and Mueller investigations as witch hunts.
Papadopoulos, who was prosecuted by Mueller, entered a guilty plea in 2017 to lying to the FBI and was sentenced to 14 days' prison.
Papadopoulos claims he was the victim of an international spying plot by US, Australian, UK, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies.
He also alleges he was set up by Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, who told him Russia had dirt on Clinton.
Downer, the Australian government and former high-ranking US intelligence officials have rejected the claims.
"That is a really far-fetched theory in my view that somehow Mifsud was set up by the FBI to create this conspiracy," James Clapper, director of US national intelligence in 2016, told CNN.
Trump has latched on to Papadopoulos' spying claims.
The president previously told reporters he hoped Barr looked "at the UK, and I hope he looks at Australia and I hope he looks at Ukraine".
Barr recently visited Italy and the UK.
The ramping up of the Department of Justice probe comes as Trump faces abuse of power accusations, including an impeachment inquiry into whether he withheld military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate presidential rival Joe Biden and son Hunter.
Australian Associated Press
