Jeffrey Toobin

Toobin is also the author of renowned best-seller Too Close to Call: The 36-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election, the definitive story of the Bush-Gore presidential recount and the basis for an HBO movie. With clarity, insight, humor, and a deep understanding of the law, Toobin deconstructs the events, the players, and the often-Byzantine intricacies of our judicial system, ending up with a remarkable account of one of the most significant periods in our nation’s history. Toobin received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After a six-year tenure at ABC News, where he covered the country’s highest-profile cases and received a 2000 Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elian Gonzales custody saga, Toobin joined CNN as a legal analyst in 2002 where he now serves as the Senior Legal Analyst. Also a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1993, he has written articles on such subjects as the Bernie Madoff scandal, the case of Roman Polanski, and profiles of Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens, and Chief Justice John Roberts. His article “An Incendiary Defense” for the magazine broke the news that the O.J. Simpson defense team planned to accuse Mark Fuhrman of planting evidence and playing “the race card.” Prior to joining The New Yorker, Toobin served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Brooklyn, New York. He also served as an associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, an experience that provided the basis for his book, Opening Arguments: A Lawyer’s First Case: United States v. Oliver North. His other books also take a behind the scenes look at the legal system—A Vast Conspiracy explored the investigation and impeachment of Bill Clinton, and The Run of His Life closely examined the working of the criminal justice system in the O.J. Simpson trial. Toobin’s latest best-seller, American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst, was released to considerable acclaim in August 2016. The book examines the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst, granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, by the Symbionese Liberation Army. The astonishing, theatrical details of the saga are firmly bound to a tangible reality, aided by more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents. Toobin allows readers to peek into the past – right into one of the most insane eras of American history. The book has already been optioned for film by Fox 2000. His other book, The Run of His Life: The People vs. O. J. Simpson, was the basis for the acclaimed mini-series on FX, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Travolta and Sarah Paulson.
Toobin’s next book will focus on the ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.
Toobin lives in New York City with his wife and two children.