Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony charges.

Donald Trump former US president

A quick snapshot of a historic day

Copyright: Reuters

• Donald Trump, the 45th president of the US, has become the first current or former president to be found guilty of a crime

• Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star
• He is due to be sentenced on 11 July, just four days before the Republican Party formally picks him to run for president at their party conference
• He has slammed the verdict, and announced that he will hold a news conference on Friday morning at Trump Tower in Manhattan
• The impact of the historic verdict remains extremely unclear, in terms of how it affects Trump's electability
• The Biden campaign released a statement, reminding voters that the only way to defeat Trump is at the ballot box, not the courtroom.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche outlines appeal arguments

Donald Trump's attorney Todd Blanche told CNN's Kaitlan Collins Thursday that the former president's legal team plans to argue in its appeal of the verdict that the jury was biased against Trump and the timing of the trial was unfair.

"Every single person on the jury knew Donald Trump as president, as a candidate, from 'The Apprentice' so I don't accept that this was a fair place to try President Trump," Blanche said.

He added: "There was so much publicity around the witnesses and around – leading up to the trial that our system of justice isn't supposed to be a system where every person who walks into the courtroom knows about the case."

"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 said.

Blanche previewed that Trump's legal team will now "vigorously fight" with motions due in a few weeks. And "if that is not successful," the attorney said they will appeal following the sentencing in July.

Trump's attorney said he was "very surprised" when news came that the jury had reached a verdict

CNN's Kaitlan Collins interviews Todd Blanche after a Manhattan jury found his client, Donal Trump, guilty of falsifying business records on Thursday, May 30. CNN

Donald Trump's attorney Todd Blanche said he was "very surprised" when it was announced that a verdict had been reached in the former president's hush money trial on Thursday.

"As 4:30 came, we were just going to go home and start again tomorrow, and then the jury, you know, sent a note that they reached a verdict," Blanche told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on "The Source."

But Blanche clarified that "it wasn't surprising like 'Oh my gosh, I'm shocked'" because they were prepared for a guilty verdict.

Remember: Shortly after 4 p.m. ET, Judge Juan Merchan told the courtroom the jury would be dismissed at 4:30 p.m. and the expectation was that the jurors would resume their deliberations on Friday. Trump was saying "Thank you" to the court staff and his demeanor was the most relaxed since jury selection.

Then word came that the jurors, who had been deliberating for nearly 12 hours over two days, had reached a verdict. Not long afterward, the guilty verdict on 34 counts was announced.