Jeffrey Toobin Opens Up About Masturbation 'Disaster' And What's Happened Since

Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin opened up on Wednesday about the masturbation incident that nearly cost him his career. 

“It was a disaster in my life,” he told Dan Abrams on NewsNation. “Self-inflicted, self-destructive and something that I will regret for the rest of my life.” 

Toobin was caught on camera with his pants down during a 2020 Zoom call with staffers at the New Yorker magazine ― where he was a writer ― and local radio station WNYC.

He was fired by the New Yorker and suspended by CNN, where he was a legal analyst.  

“I have no excuses,” he told Abrams. “I have only apologies, which I have tried to offer to everyone involved, including very much my family, which was terribly embarrassed by it.” 

Toobin returned to CNN in June 2021. He and the network parted ways last year in what he called a “mutual” decision. 

He joined Abrams to talk about his new book “Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh And The Rise of Right Wing Extremism,” but began by addressing the incident.

“What exactly happened?” Abrams asked. “Was it just you just left open the screen?” 

“I’d rather not go into the grisly details,” Toobin replied. “The only thing I’ll say about it is I didn’t know other people were on the Zoom call, were watching, and this was not an intentional act on my part.”  

He said he’s “in a very good place” now, but knows the incident will follow him around.

“As we used to say in school, this is on my permanent record,” he told Abrams. “I know that. But I hope it’s not the entirety of my permanent record.” 

See more of their conversation above.