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Jeffrey Toobin
Jeffrey Ross Toobin is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and legal analyst for CNN.
During the Iran–Contra affair, he served as an associate counsel in the Department of Justice. He moved from government into writing during the 1990s, and wrote for The New Yorker from 1993 to 2020 when he was fired for masturbating on-camera during a video-conference call with co-workers. Toobin has written several books, including an account of the O. J. Simpson murder case. That book was adapted as a TV series, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which aired in 2016 as the first season of FX's American Crime Story.
Toobin was born to a Jewish American family 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.[10] His younger brother, Mark, born in 1967 with Down syndrome, lived apart from the family.
He attended Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, and then Harvard College for undergraduate studies. He covered sports for The Harvard Crimson,[11] where 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 then attended Harvard Law School, where he was classmates with Elena Kagan and graduated magna cum laude with a J.D. in 1986. While there, he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Toobin promoting his book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court at the 2007 Texas Book Festival
Toobin began freelancing for The New Republic while a law student. After passing the bar, he worked as a law clerk to a federal judge and then as an associate counsel for Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh during the Iran–Contra affair and Oliver North's criminal trial. He next served 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,[14] about his work in the Office of Independent Counsel, to which Walsh objected. 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. Before Walsh's appeal could be decided, the book was published, mooting the case. Accordingly the Circuit Court vacated the lower court's decision and ordered that the case be dismissed.
After three years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Toobin resigned from the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn, where he had gone to work after working for Walsh, and abandoned "the practice of law."[citation needed] He started working in 1993 at The New Yorker and became a television legal analyst for ABC in 1996.
Toobin has provided broadcast legal analysis on many high-profile cases. In 1994, Toobin broke the story in The New Yorker that the legal team in O. J. Simpson's criminal trial planned to accuse Mark Fuhrman of planting evidence. Toobin provided analysis of Michael Jackson's 2005 child molestation trial,[17] the O. J. Simpson civil case, and prosecutor Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Bill Clinton. He received a 2000 Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elián González custody saga.
Toobin joined CNN in 2002;[16] he is now the chief legal analyst. In 2003, he secured the first interview with Martha Stewart about the insider trading charges against her.[2] Toobin speaking about the Supreme Court at the John J. Rhodes Lecture in Tempe, Arizona
Toobin is the author of seven books. His book 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, The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court, was published in 2012. American Heiress: The Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst came out in 2016. All were New York Times Best Sellers. In 2020, he authored True Crimes and Misdemeanors, the Investigation of Donald Trump, which is described as a condensation of evidence against the character and presidency of Donald Trump as if he were on trial.[18]
In 2021, Toobin's book, A Vast Conspiracy, was adapted into the FX true-crime anthology, Impeachment: American Crime Story.