New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and a long list of other anti-Trump politicians celebrated in the wake of her landing a $464 million civil judgment against the former president, but that celebration could soon flip entirely the other way.

That's because, according to The Hill, judges on a New York appeals court signaled skepticism of James' judgment, questioning whether or not she truly had the jurisdiction under New York state law to hit the former president as hard as she and the judge did.

The fact that the appeals court is already expressing some level of doubt in the judgment is great news for Mr. Trump and his team of lawyers, who previously vowed to fight the ruling.

While James has sweeping power to come down hard on businesses in the state, it can only happen under certain circumstances.

What's going on?

According to New York state law, the AG can legally come down hard on businesses that are found to have "repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business."

The panel of judges on the New York appeals court questioned whether or not James was able to classify Trump's business as one that falls into that category.

"How do we draw a line, or at least put up some guardrails, to know when the AG [attorney general] is operating well within her broad — admittedly broad — sphere … and when she is going into an area that wasn’t intended for her jurisdiction?" Justice John Higgitt asked

The Hill noted:

Trump attorney D. John Sauer, who represented the former president before the Supreme Court in his presidential immunity challenge, argued before the panel that the state’s case was brought too late and that decades-old financial statements should not be the basis for such a “crippling” financial penalty.

Sauer also argued that banks were lining up to work with Trump, reiterating that nobody was hurt in his business transactions.

"They did do their own due diligence," Sauer said. "The uncontradicted testimony in the summary judgment record is, ‘Everything we did was independent; we didn’t rely on the numbers.’"

State gets shut down

New York’s Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale was interrupted by two of the appellate justices as she attempted to argue that James operated within the scope of her jurisdiction.

The judge asked if there were any other examples of New York suing "equally sophisticated partners."

"Because I’ve gone through the case that you’ve cited, and all of them always involved consumer protection aspect — it involved protection of the market,” Justice David Friedman said. "You don’t have anything like that here."

A ruling on Trump's appeal is expected in the coming months, though it was noted that it will likely not come before election day.