How Trump could overturn guilty verdict in hush money trial - and why it's a long shot even for 'Teflon Don'

Donald Trump's lawyers are teeing up a path to appeal his conviction after the ex-president was found guilty in his historic hush money trial.

A New York jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels on Thursday and he will be sentenced on July 11.  

Trump's legal team is expected to appeal, but the unprecedented conviction sets off a process that all convicted criminals face within the Manhattan criminal court system.

Sentencing will kickoff a 30-day clock for the former president to file an appeal - a lengthy process that some legal experts said will be an uphill battle for Trump.

'This is all uncharted territory, as far as an appellate issue. I certainly don't think there has been a prosecution of falsifying business records like this one,' Barry Kamins, a retired judge and Brooklyn Law School professor told The New York Times.

Trump vowed to fight his conviction on Friday and outlined two areas that his team will raise on appeal – the location of the trial and the judge.

'We wanted a venue change where we could have a fair trial. We didn't get it. We wanted a judge who wasn't conflicted,' he said.

Mark Zauderer, a New York lawyer and member of a committee that screens appeals applications, told the Times it will be difficult for Trump's team to successful appeal based on the judge.

'This case has none of the usual red flags for reversal on appeal. The judge’s demeanor was flawless,' Zauderer said. 

During the five week long trial, prosecutors told of a plot by Trump to 'corrupt' the 2016 election by hiding a $130,000 hush money payment by his 'fixer' Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels. 

Daniels alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier, which he has denied.

The case featured explosive evidence by Daniels and lifted the lid on the 'catch and kill' practices of the National Enquirer tabloid, which bought stories that could be damaging to Trump and suppressed them.

But the actual criminal charges concern something more prosaic - the reimbursements Trump signed for Cohen for the payment.

The reimbursements, paid by Trump in monthly installments, were recorded as being for legal expenses.

Prosecutors say that was a fraudulent label designed to conceal the purpose of the hush money transaction and to illicitly interfere in the 2016 election. 

Defense lawyers argued that Cohen actually did substantive legal work for Trump and his family and was paid for it.

Another path Trump's lawyers might try is to challenge the notion that Trump caused a false entry in the records of 'an enterprise.' 

His lawyers could argue that they were Trump's personal documents and not his company's.

Another avenue would be to challenge the legal theory from the prosecution for the election law conspiracy crime that required the judge to give the jury complicated instructions, 

'The more complex the jury instructions, the more likely they are to bear appellate issues,' said Nathaniel Z. Marmur, a New York appellate lawyer told The Times. 'And these are some of the most complex instructions one could imagine.'

Trump's next step will be to turn to the Appellate Division, First Department to try to overturn his 34-count conviction.

Following their ruling Trump's team or the prosecution could ask the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, to review the decision.

The final option would be for the former president's team to ask the United States Supreme Court to look at the case.  

'This is a garden-variety state court conviction, I don't see a plausible path to the Supreme Court,' Zauderer said.

Still, Trump's team isn't ruling out trying to bring the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided to intervene in his Washington, D.C. election interference case by hearing his claims of presidential immunity.

Any sort of appeal is unlikely to come before the 2024 election, where Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, will rematch President Joe Biden.

Biden even addressed Trump's right to appeal during remarks at the White House, where he defended the jury process and condemned Trump's 'reckless' decision to call the trial 'rigged just because you don't like the verdict.'

He said Trump has the 'opportunity to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity. That’s how the American system works,' he said.