Former President Donald Trump's legal team appears more focused on leveraging his New York fraud trial to lay the groundwork for a future appeal, turning the proceedings into a fundraising event and relying on the trial as an excuse to avoid other court dates, rather than attempting to secure a victory, legal experts say.
Privately, his team has held conversations about how they believed losing this trial was inevitable. Their most viable option would be to contest the case in an appellate court, two sources familiar with the matter told Rolling Stone.
