former US president Donald Trump guilty on all counts in historic criminal trial

 As a reminder, Donald Trump's team says they are planning to appeal against the verdicts. But on what basis?

The evidence of Stormy Daniels, whose alleged sexual encounter with Trump was at the heart of the case, could be one reason.

“The level of detail that was provided [by Daniels] is really not necessary to the telling of the story," says Anna Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School.

The novel legal strategy taken by the district attorney in this case may also provide grounds for appeal.

Falsifying business records can be a lower-level misdemeanor in New York, but Trump faced more serious felony charges because of a supposed second crime - an illegal attempt to influence the 2016 election.

Prosecutors broadly alleged that violations of federal and state election laws, along with tax fraud, applied to this case. But they did not specify to the jury exactly which one was broken.

Legal experts say there are questions around the scope and application of the federal law, which could form a basis for appeal. Never before has a state prosecutor invoked an uncharged federal crime, and there’s a question if the Manhattan District Attorney had the jurisdiction to do so.

Porn star Stormy Daniels says she had sex with Donald Trump in 2006 (something he denies), and she was paid to stay quiet about it ahead of the 2016 election, which Trump won.

The trial centered on a reimbursement Trump made to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen said he was told by Trump to pay Daniels $130,000 (£104,000) to buy her silence.

Hush-money payments are not illegal. But prosecutors said Trump improperly recorded the reimbursement to Cohen as legal expenses. Trump was further accused of violating state election law.

He was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year and is scheduled to be crowned at the party's convention just days after his 11 July sentencing.

Polls have indicated that he's in a statistical dead heat with President Joe Biden and maintains a slight edge in many key swing states that will decide the election.

But those surveys also provided evidence that this conviction might change all of that.

In exit polls conducted during the Republican primaries this winter, double-digit numbers of voters said that they would not vote for the former president if he were convicted of a felony.

Now those voters can make their judgment based on a real conviction. Even a slight drop in Trump’s support might be enough to matter in the kind of razor-thin race this presidential contest could become.

The New York trial was one of four criminal cases the ex-president is facing:

• Federal prosecutors in Washington DC accuse Trump of conspiring to overturn his election loss in 2020, including by stoking the Capitol rioters on 6 January 2021. The trial is indefinitely postponed due to an appeal from Trump who says presidents cannot be prosecuted like other citizens
• In Georgia, Trump is charged with 18 other defendants with criminally conspiring to overturn his narrow defeat in the state in 2020. The trial's been delayed after Trump launched an effort to disqualify the lead prosecutor
• Trump is also accused of mishandling classified documents and bringing them home after he left the White House in a federal case in Florida. Again, the trial has been delayed as the judge considers motions from Trump's legal team