Trump, legal analysts say, has the right to withhold such communications with foreign leaders from lawmakers and the public as classified or otherwise privileged. But in this case — when Trump is said to have pressed the Ukrainian president about investigating the son of former vice president Joe Biden, one of his political rivals — he could be misusing his authority to cover up personal wrongdoing, analysts say.
“We cannot say that executive privilege and control over classified information is going to be used to shield the president from his duties to comply with federal law,” said Claire Finkelstein, the faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania law school. “That’s just a sort of complete abuse of office.”