Trump attorney says team was 'expecting' guilty verdict in New York case, lays out plan to appeal

Donald Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the "Today" show on Friday that the former president's defense team in the New York case was "expecting" a guilty verdict. He noted that they plan to appeal.

On Thursday, a jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records, Blaze News previously reported. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) filed the charges against the former president last year.

'I don't accept that this was a fair place to try President Trump.'

"This was a verdict that we were expecting. We're going to appeal, and we're going to win on appeal," Blanche told the news outlet. "The goal is to appeal quickly and hopefully be vindicated quickly."

Blanche stated that Trump's defense team was neither shocked nor surprised by the outcome of the case.

"We didn't think we were gonna get a fair shake in Manhattan, and we didn't," he told the "Today" show.

Trump's attorney explained that there was "a lot of evidence" in the case that should have been presented to jurors but was rejected.

"We asked to bring in evidence, for example, of tax records of some of the witnesses. That was one of the theories of the prosecution. We weren't allowed to do that. There's a reliance on counsel theory that would have been, we believe, helpful to our defense that we were not allowed to bring in," Blanche continued. "The judge, as judges can do, limited in lots of ways our cross-examination of witnesses that made it a challenge."

Acting Justice Juan Merchan is expected to announce sentencing in July. Trump is facing up to four years in prison on each count. Blanche was asked whether he believed Bragg would request that Trump face prison time.

"I would hope not," he responded. "Under the guidelines and the rules of the court, what normally would happen, President Trump would not face a day in prison."

"He should not go to prison. I don't know what the district attorney is going to do," Blanche added.

He told the news outlet that the case is not over just because the jury returned a verdict, stating that Trump's legal team plans to appeal.

"I think the recusal issue is meaningful," Blanche explained. "I think the statute of limitations, the background of why this case was brought, is meaningful."

"I do not think Michael Cohen should ever be somebody who can be relied upon to convict somebody," he added, referring to Trump's former attorney.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday evening, Blanche stated, "Every single person on the jury knew Donald Trump as president, as candidate, from 'The Apprentice,' so I don't accept that this was a fair place to try President Trump."

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pushed back on Blanche's argument, stating that jurors knowing about the case going into the trial was unavoidable.

"The law doesn't say, 'But if you can't avoid it, tough luck.' That's not what the law says. The law says a person is entitled to a fair trial in front of a jury of their peers, and we just think that because of everything around the lead-up this trial, it made it very difficult for the jury to evaluate the evidence kind of independent of what they knew coming in," Blanche remarked.

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