As former President Donald Trump’s lawyers work behind the scenes to prepare an appeal after his conviction, New York vs. Trump Speaking to Fox News Digital about the trial, legal experts speculated about whether the Republican nominee has confidence in his defense team ahead of a sentencing hearing scheduled just four days before the Republican National Convention.
Under normal circumstances, the defense would wait to appeal until after the verdict, but legal analyst Phil Holloway questioned the lack of urgency shown by Trump’s legal team in seeking federal intervention.
“I would like to know why Mr. Trump’s legal team is not trying to delay the impending ruling,” Holloway told Fox News Digital. “I believe there is a valid argument to be made before the New York Court of Appeals, or even before the federal courts, that under the extraordinary circumstances of this case, a stay of the litigation in New York is necessary to prevent serious disruption of the federal election process.”
“Either way, every American citizen has an interest in being able to vote for the candidate of their choice in the presidential election, so this isn’t a normal, customary appeal story,” Holloway said. “It’s unheard of in American jurisprudence, so I think they can throw out the traditional rule book. I think they need to do every possible avenue to get relief from another court.”
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Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media with his lawyer Todd Blanche after his conviction in New York state, Thursday, May 30, 2024. (Pool Photo by Michael M. Santiago/via The Associated Press)
Holloway and another legal analyst, David Gelman, who spoke to Fox News Digital, respectively. Bush v. Gore In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Florida was not required to complete a recount of the 2000 presidential election because it had failed to complete the recount in a constitutionally valid manner within the deadlines set by federal law.
Gelman said the Supreme Court and lower federal courts typically do not intervene in state decisions unless the issue is of “national importance,” as was the case in the 2000 and Trump cases.
“This is a Hail Mary. I’m not going to say it’s not. But there’s nothing to lose. And I think this might get their attention a little bit more than a normal Hail Mary, so to speak,” Gelman told Fox News Digital. “Also, the Supreme Court is currently hearing President Trump’s immunity argument. … They’re very familiar with the arguments that President Trump makes, even though it’s not an immunity issue. So I think it would be very prudent for the defense to file a motion with the Supreme Court asking them to intervene and to file an emergency petition.”
“I don’t know what they’re doing behind the scenes to prepare for the ruling or the appeal, but I would like to see them act with a greater sense of urgency on the appeals,” Holloway said. “If it were me, I might go to federal court before the ruling and seek some kind of injunction to suspend or stop the ruling, because I think there are enough federal issues at stake for the federal court to get involved, given that there are federal interests at stake regarding the upcoming election.”
Gelman said the appeal should not have gone to the Intermediate Appellate Division in Manhattan, but at a minimum to the New York State Appellate Division or the Supreme Court.
Holloway said that if Trump’s legal team could “somehow get a halt or pause on the sentencing, they might be able to begin the process of getting some kind of Supreme Court ruling before the election.”
“If their client receives a prison sentence or is placed on probation, that would be a significant restriction on the former president’s personal liberty,” Holloway said. “Either way, it has an effect on the election. And I think there is a significant federal issue there that gives a federal court the jurisdiction it needs to make a determination even before the appeal has gone through the normal process.”
Former President Donald Trump sits with his lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on May 29, 2024, as he awaits the start of his criminal trial. (JABIN BOTSFORD/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
He also addressed how the timing of the Republican National Convention could affect Trump’s lawyers’ strategy. “I think it could make a big difference for a federal court whether it’s the party’s actual nominee or the presumptive nominee,” Holloway said. “If the actual nominee is in prison or on probation or house arrest or some combination of all of those, and there are significant restrictions on their personal liberty, I think that’s a very real issue for a federal court to get involved in, because there’s a strong argument to suspend any further proceedings until after the election.”
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Another case to consider is Georgia, where the state’s appeals court has stayed all proceedings in the 2020 election interference case until it hears Trump’s appeal to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fanice Willis. The trial date is tentatively scheduled for October 4. Holloway and Gelman agreed that Manhattan and Fulton County, Georgia, are both heavily Democratic jurisdictions, but Holloway noted that a small area in northern Fulton County has traditionally been heavily Republican, meaning that Trump has a slightly better chance of getting a more friendly jury there than in Manhattan, where potential jurors are selected from across the county.
“I think it’s highly likely that District Attorney Fani Willis will resign and no longer be able to take this case, and then we have another set of eyes looking at this, whether it’s the Georgia Attorney General’s office or an independent entity, and I think the case will be dismissed,” Gelman said, comparing the two cases. “I think they’re two very different things.”
As for the work of Trump’s legal team throughout the Manhattan trial, Holloway and Gelman said they were at a disadvantage from the start because of the trial’s location in New York City and the judge’s refusal to recuse himself from the case despite the Trump campaign pointing out that he had donated to President Biden’s campaign.
Stormy Daniels is questioned by attorney Susan Necheles in the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump, who is charged with falsifying business records to hide money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016. A courtroom sketch in state court in Manhattan, New York City, May 9, 2024. (Reuters/Jane Rosenberg)
“If he wasn’t confident in his lawyers, we would probably have heard by now that he was hiring other lawyers,” Gelman told Fox News Digital. “We all know President Trump. He’s not that shy about expressing his feelings, he’s not that shy about firing people, he’s not that shy about hiring people. He only wants the best working for him, and that includes his lawyers. So the fact that he didn’t do anything drastic — he didn’t fire Todd Blanche or any of the other members of his legal team and replace them with new ones — shows that he was happy with them. I know he wasn’t happy with the outcome, and nobody is. But at the same time, he’s a realist.”
Gellman said Trump’s defense lawyers in the Manhattan trial, Blanche, Emil Bove and Susan Necheles, “did an excellent job based on the facts presented.”
“To be honest with you, number one, I didn’t believe there was any crime alleged,” Gelman told Fox News Digital.
“You can’t say with a straight face that there wasn’t a reasonable doubt,” Gelman said. I mean, you have two witnesses, Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, who literally said on the stand that they wanted President Trump in jail. They were at war with President Trump. They were out for blood. And Cohen is the epitome of reasonable doubt.”
Gellman said he believed Trump’s legal team “kept a cool head” when questioning Daniels and Cohen.
“Trump’s defense team raised every objection they could, and many of the objections they made were overruled,” Gelman told Fox News Digital. “Again, I think the judge made a bad decision, because a lot of the objections should not have been overruled. And then the prosecution also objected to the exact same, very similar points, and their objections were successful. So it was a very striking double standard.”
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Neither legal expert criticized Trump’s legal team for calling in Robert Costello, former counsel to Michael Cohen, but Holloway acknowledged that the move “backfired because the judge handcuffed them.”
“It’s easy to criticize these things on a Monday morning,” Holloway said, “They had a very tough jurisdiction. They had a very tough judge. They had a tough jury. And obviously they’re in enemy territory. They did extremely well considering where they were and what they had to deal with.”
