Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was "disturbed" by the Senate leader's approach to working with White House counsel on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, saying there should be distance between the two.

The comments by the Alaska lawmaker come after Mitch McConnell, majority leader of the Republican-led Senate, said during a Fox News interview earlier this month that he was working in "total coordination" with the White House on the upcoming trial.

"To me it means that we have to take that step back from being hand-in-glove with the defense," Murkowski said in comments aired late on Tuesday during an interview with Alaska-based NBC news affiliate KTUU-TV. "I heard what leader McConnell had said. I happened to think that has further confused the process."