Some legal analysts have sounded the alarm over former President Trump’s conviction, warning that a leading Republican candidate could successfully appeal his Manhattan criminal case.
CNN senior legal analyst Ellie Honig criticized New York’s criminal case against Trump as an “unjustified mess” and argued that prosecutors “twisted the law” to catch the former president.
“Prosecutors have caught their culprit, at least for now, but they have twisted the law in unprecedented ways to get their prey,” Honig said in a New York magazine article published Friday.
A New York jury on Thursday found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a lawsuit brought against him by Manhattan’s Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Elie Honig wrote that prosecutors in New York v. Trump “twisted the law in unprecedented ways to capture their prey.” (Screenshot/CNN)
Tim Scott clashes with CNN host after Trump’s guilty verdict in New York: ‘No, I can’t correct this’
“Many prosecutors have won convictions in cases that should never have been prosecuted in the first place,” Honig argues. “‘But they won’ is not a defense to a forced, complicated sentence unless the goal is now to ‘win’ by any means necessary, and not to worry about the veracity of the case and its aftermath.”
CNN legal reporter Paula Reid said Sunday that while an appeals process is unlikely before the election, “there are some legitimate questions that should be appealed.”
“Do I think the entire lawsuit will be overturned? That’s unlikely, but there are certainly issues that should be raised,” Reed said.
On her show Thursday, CNN host Erin Burnett asked former prosecutor Mark O’Mara about the possibility of Trump appealing his conviction.
“Actually, I think it’s pretty good, because there are some key issues [with] “The way this trial is proceeding,” O’Mara said.
O’Mara said the appeals court would no longer be talking about Trump, but would instead be about whether the judge in the case, Juan Marchan, had done everything he should have done to ensure a fair trial “free from outside influence.”
Former prosecutor Mark O’Mara warned on CNN that the fact that jurors were not sequestered during the Trump trial could be grounds for an appeal.
‘You’re lying!’ anti-Trump lawyer yells at CNN contributor in heated argument over Trump conviction
“The idea that the jury wasn’t sequestered during deliberations, let alone the week between trial and conclusion, I think it’s a huge mistake for the appeals court to say, ‘This is what’s going to happen,'” O’Mara said. “The defense will be tracing every single juror, finding out who they were, what they looked like, where they drove, what they did, what signs they saw, all of that, and that will be fodder for the appeal. The jury was consumed with negativity and the judge didn’t protect his client. This is just one issue, there are 100 that I could talk about.”
Teri Austin, a former trial lawyer, agreed.
“It doesn’t matter if there was any misconduct on the part of the jurors, they had all this time left. Did anybody use social media? Did they tell other jurors what was going on before they began their vote? Did they talk to family members? All of these are reasons that could affect an appeal,” Austin said.
CNN host Michael Smerconish also suggested there may be a legitimate avenue for the former president to appeal, and asked Honig for his opinion on his show Saturday.
Smerconish argued that Trump “can honestly say he doesn’t know what he’s been convicted of.” Both men agreed that this would be a legitimate appeals issue for the former president.
Honig also outlined another appeals issue, arguing that it would be unprecedented for Bragg, the county prosecutor, to enforce a federal law.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks with staff at a press conference following the guilty verdict in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s hush money trial, May 30, 2024, in New York City. (Getty Images)
Romney slams Bragg’s “political decision” in Trump lawsuit as “misconduct”
“The second point on appeal is that one of the bases for the conviction, the unlawful means, is a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Michael, do you know how many times in the history of this country has a prosecutor at the state or county level ever brought an indictment with a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act as either a charge or part of the charge, as an unlawful means or as any part of the charge? The answer is zero,” Honig said.
“This is the first time in American history that this has happened. The argument on appeal seems to be that when there is a federal regulatory structure around elections, it is the federal government’s job to break it. It is not the job of the state, or in this case the county (Alvin Bragg is a county-level prosecutor) to enforce it.”
“An appeal may be viable,” said Arlo Devlin Brown, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan. He told Politico.
“The fact that the prosecution presented three different theories as to how the false records may have violated state election law, the limited explanation of what some of those theories required, and the jury not being required to agree on which ones were proven combine to create real problems on appeal,” Devlin Brown said.
Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024, after being convicted of 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. (Felipe Ramares for Fox News Digital)
Trump slams ‘wrongful’ conviction as campaign collects donations after conviction
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday to discuss the ruling, in which he suggested there will be a “vigorous appeal.”
“Certainly there will be strong appeals and there will be issues that the appeals court will carefully consider,” he said. Asked what Trump’s best case is on appeal, Vance cited the judge’s jury instructions and his idea that jurors don’t have to agree on the underlying crimes raised by Trump’s forgery.
Click here to get the FOX News app
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
