Jeffrey Toobin

Jeffrey Ross Toobin is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and longtime legal analyst for CNN. He announced his exit from CNN in August 2022. During the Iran–Contra affair, Toobin served as an associate counsel on this investigation in the Department of Justice. He moved from government and law practice into full-time writing during the 1990s, when he published his first books. 

He wrote for The New Yorker from 1993 to 2020. He was fired that fall for masturbating on camera during a ZOOM video conference call with co-workers. He continued to serve as a legal analyst for CNN for two years. Toobin has written several books, including accounts of the 1970s Patty Hearst kidnapping and time with the SLA, the O. J. Simpson murder case, and the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. The latter two were adapted for television as seasons of FX's American Crime Story, with the Simpson case premiering in 2016.

Toobin began freelancing for The New Republic while a law student. After passing the bar exam, he worked as a law clerk to U.S. 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 grand jury's confidentiality and the office's internal proceedings. 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.