EXCERPT:
SCARBOROUGH: "You know, Danny, I have expressed, at times, skepticism about this case even being brought. I will say, though, yesterday, when commentators were talking about how this was like some Perry Mason -- I'm just like, no, it’s not. A juror is not going to go, 'Oh, my god, eight years ago, a minute and a half conversation...' — I mean, it seems to me the much bigger problem is the podcast where he says, 'I want this guy to go down.' I mean, the prosecution is going to be able to clean this up on redirect, aren’t they?"
CEVALLOS: "I agree, but I think you are in the minority. The vibe I’ve been getting is that a lot of folks feel like this was that kind of Perry Mason moment. And to that I say, when it comes to cooperating witness types like Cohen — and Cohen, if we take a step back, isn’t even close to the worst kind of cooperating witness you normally have on the stand. These are hardened criminals normally. This is not Cohen. So the prosecution knows that he’s going to get dinged on things, especially because a lot of these allegations happened eight years ago. Juries will forgive memory lapses from that long ago."
SCARBOROUGH: "Of course."
CEVALLOS: "So, I wasn't in the courtroom, but from what I could see I think this is something that one of two things will happen: either the prosecution will choose to clean it up on redirect, or, Joe, they may not even think it’s that big a deal. They may go for the better moment, which is to stand up and say, 'We’re good, we have no further questions for this witness.' I just didn’t think it was that damaging because the prosecution is going to concede, essentially, and they have throughout the case, Cohen is flaky, Cohen is a guy that isn’t the most reliable person, but he’s believable on these issues. You know, I’ve been guilty of this before myself in cases where you find a factual inconsistency and you really hammer it and you think it’s going to be that Perry Mason moment, but if you hammer it too much, it looks a little petty to the jury. So it's hard to say what the jurors are thinking. It just didn’t strike me as something that was fatal to the prosecution. Everybody knew that Cohen was going to get hit with his inconsistencies on cross-examination, I don’t think it came as a surprise to the prosecution, and I really don’t think even the defense thinks that that they’ve completely dumped on the state’s case."