Over at New York Magazine, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig has a piece which attempts to be down the middle on the Trump conviction. On the one hand, Honig offers respect to the jury who he says did their job. On the other hand, he points out that there remain a lot of problems with this case, any one of which might be grounds for it to be overturned on appeal.

Both of these things can be true at once: the jury did its job, and this case was an ill-conceived, unjustified mess...

The judge donated money – a tiny amount, $35, but in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations of any kind – to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation, including funds that the Judge earmarked for “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” Would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to “Re-elect Donald Trump, MAGA forever!”? Absolutely not.

Honig also mentions DA Bragg's decision to run for office based partly on his anti-Trump record. But his main issue with the case is the completely novel and unique legal approach which turned what were a bunch of misdemeanor business records charges that were already past the statue of limitations into 34 felony charges. That was a magic trick performed solely because the defendant was Trump.

...when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: the charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor – in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere – has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever...

...to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) – and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations – the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York state election law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were – and the judge declined to force them to pony up – until right before closing arguments. So much for the Constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.)

In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else.

Honig concludes that while it's not a sure thing, Trump has a "decent shot" of reversal on appeal. That's not a message the talking heads on most news channels want to hear right now but this moment of celebration for the left has already set in motion a possible (likely?) moment of disappointment when an appeals court points out all of the problems with this case.

On the other hand, Alan Dershowitz says no appeal for Trump can succeed in New York because of the same politics that generated this bespoke case against him in the first place.

While appearing on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast on Thursday, Dershowitz said the former president "has to appeal first through the New York system, and the New York system are all judges that don't wanna be responsible for freeing Donald Trump."

He added: "These are people who have to live with their families. These are people who don't wanna be Dershowitzed."...

"People know what happened to me when I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate. Nobody on Martha's Vineyard would speak to me....I am not encouraged that he'll get a fair appeal," Dershowitz said, adding that the case may reach the Supreme Court, but not prior to the November 5 election.

That's a pretty downbeat assessment but I'm not sure I'd bet money that he's wrong. There were real problems with this case but the urge to protect Biden's chances at reelection is going to be very powerful, especially as we get closer to election day.

Kudos to NY Mag for not going with the flow and glossing over the problems with this case. Are the news outlets which are current celebrating the verdict going to be willing to eat crow if this is eventually overturned? My guess is the sober reappraisals will be few and far between. This is going to become one more bit of our history, like the outcome of the 2000 election, where left and right never agree about what actually happened.