Jeffrey Toobin

Jeffrey Ross Toobin (; born May 21, 1960) is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and legal analyst for CNN.

During the Iran–Contra affair, Toobin served as an associate counsel on its investigation at the Department of Justice. He moved from government and the practice of law into full-time writing during the 1990s, when he published his first books. He wrote for The New Yorker from 1993 until 2020, in New York City in 1960, a son of Marlene Sanders, former ABC News and CBS News correspondent, and Jerome Toobin, a news broadcasting producer. His younger brother, Mark, born in 1967 with Down syndrome, has lived apart from the family.

Toobin attended Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School. While attending Harvard College for undergraduate studies, he covered sports for The Harvard Crimson. His column was titled "Inner Toobin". Toobin graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American history and literature and was awarded a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

He attended Harvard Law School (future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was a classmate) and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated in 1986 magna cum laude.

Career

Toobin began freelancing for The New Republic while a law student. After passing the bar exam, he worked as a law clerk to US circuit judge J. Edward Lumbard of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Next he served as an associate counsel for Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh during the Iran–Contra affair and Oliver North's criminal trial. He moved to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn.

Toobin wrote a book, Opening Arguments: A Young Lawyer's First Case: United States v. Oliver North (1991), about his work in the Office of Independent Counsel, to which Walsh objected. Toobin had been required to sign multiple agreements to protect the confidentiality of grand jury and internal proceedings of the office. But he had taken thousands of pages of notes with him and based his book on such information, revealing material that Walsh believed should have been held as private. Toobin went to court to affirm his right to publish. Judge John F. Keenan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote an opinion that Toobin and his publisher had the right to release this book. The book was published before Walsh's appeal could be decided, mooting the case. Accordingly, the Circuit Court vacated the lower court's decision and ordered the dismissal of the case.

After three years as an Assistant US Attorney, Toobin resigned and abandoned "the practice of law." He started working as a writer at The New Yorker in 1993 and became a television legal analyst for ABC in 1996.

Toobin has provided broadcast legal analysis on several high-profile cases. In 1994, Toobin broke the story in The New Yorker that the legal defense team in O. J. Simpson's criminal trial planned to accuse Mark Fuhrman of the LAPD of planting evidence. the O. J. Simpson civil case, and independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton.

He published books on some of these cases: The Run of His Life: The People v OJ Simpson (1997), and A Vast Conspiracy (1999), about the investigation of Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. Each of these books was later adapted for television, the Simpson case as a mini-series, and the Clinton as an episode.

In 2000, Toobin received an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elián González custody saga, which had resulted in the return of the boy from the United States to communist-led Cuba.

Toobin joined CNN in 2002

Toobin speaking about the Supreme Court at the John J. Rhodes Lecture in Tempe, Arizona Toobin has authored seven books. His The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (2007) received awards from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

His next book was The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court (2012). American Heiress: The Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst (2016), explored events from the 1970s. All were New York Times Best Sellers.

He wrote True Crimes and Misdemeanors, the Investigation of Donald Trump (2020), described as a "summation for the jury" against the character and presidency of Donald Trump, as if he were on trial.

On August 12, 2022, Toobin announced via Twitter that he would leave CNN after 20 years. His last day on air was August 4. In February 2024, Toobin began appearing again on CNN as a frequent guest, offering analysis on both president Biden and former president Trump's current legal situations.

Adaptations Two of Toobin's books were adapted for television. His book on the OJ Simpson trial was adapted as The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, a 2016 mini-series comprising the first season of the FX true-crime anthology series. A Vast Conspiracy (1999), about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, was adapted as a series, Impeachment: American Crime Story (2021), in the FX anthology.

Zoom masturbation incident On October 19, 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Toobin was suspended from The New Yorker after he masturbated on camera during a Zoom video call between New Yorker and WNYC radio staffers. CNN said Toobin "has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted". Toobin said in a statement: "I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers." In November 2020, he was fired from The New Yorker, following an internal investigation by the parent organization, Condé Nast. New York Public Radio, which owns WNYC, indefinitely banned Toobin from its broadcasts and podcasts. Irene Katz Connelly pointed out the parallels between him positioning perpetrators of sex scandals as victims in his writing with his response to the Zoom incident. Defenders included Tina Brown, a former New Yorker editor, who said that "27 years of superb reporting and commitment to The New Yorker should have been weighed against an incident that horribly embarrassed the magazine but mostly embarrassed himself." Canadian author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell said he "read the Condé Nast news release, and I was puzzled because I couldn't find any intellectual justification for what they were doing."

Personal life

In 1986, Toobin married Amy Bennett McIntosh, whom he met in college while they worked at The Harvard Crimson. She is a 1980 Harvard graduate, holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School, They have two adult children, a daughter and son. Greenfield gave birth to Toobin's son in 2009; Toobin initially resisted acknowledging the boy. Toobin's paternity was confirmed with a DNA test as part of a suit by Greenfield for custody and child support.

Publications

Books

Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize

Essays and reporting

Profiles US Representative Barney Frank

Legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. Regarding Citizens United v. FEC regarding Bush v. Gore

Methods of execution. Discusses Baltimore City Detention Center.

Justice Antonin Scalia. Online title: "Gawker's demise and the Trump-era threat to the First Amendment" Online title: "Loretta Lynch's ideal of justice". Online title: "The National Enquirer's fervor for Trump".

Online title: "Sex, spies, and clunky computers on 'The Americans'". Online title: "The deceptive contrast between Trump and Kavanaugh". Online title: "Andrew McCabe's countdown to the Mueller Report" Online title: "The abortion fight and the pretense of precedent"