YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeffrey Toobin

lines on the record: 82
first: 2018-05-10
most recent: 2018-05-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The issue of Comey's book sort of brings in sharp relief, the two sides of my background because as a journalist, you know, part of me thinks, well, the more the better out there. We want to hear his version. We want to hear the question of when. Well, that's the thing. And that's where the lawyer and me comes out. And this was primarily, and I certainly know this from my book publishing experience, a commercial decision to get the book out of high school.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, no. This particular election. I mean, you know, I certainly have retired from the business of making predictions after my predictions of 2016. But just in terms of whether Comey should have made that announcement on October 28th, this is not hindsight. I said at the time that this was a terrible...”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think Comey's decision to make that announcement on October 28th Unforgivable is you cannot, I think his defense, which I think you summarized accurately, only underlined how absurd it was. First of all, I don't think FBI directors should be making political calculations like what will be down the road if she wins.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He certainly will not be. He certainly will not be. And close proximity is an interesting question of what close counts as I would guess certainly 30 days and probably 60 days at an absolute minimum he will. Keep things down.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. And also, when you work as a federal prosecutor, as I did, you see that the press of business requires you to Fisher cut bait at some point, that you can't investigate one person or one thing for an indefinite period of time. Unless that's all you're unless you are, that's your sole job. And I think that's a risk with the Independent Counsel law. Now, I know people in the Mueller investigation, and I know they are very aware of this problem, at least in theory, and I don't think you will see Mueller going for five years.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think it was indicative of some of the problems with the independent counsel law, which I think is a worse way of dealing things than special counsel, which is what we have now with Mueller, is that by setting up these vast bureaucracies devoted to investigating only one person, you run the risk of excessiveness. And I think both Walsh and Ken Starr later also a multi-multi-year investigation reflected the problems with that.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think, but just to go back to your question about the indictment on the eve of the election, I think it's wrong. You know, when I was a lowly assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn after this, even I knew when I was investigating members of the city council, not exactly on a scale of presidential elections, that you don't do anything where you might interfere with an election. You don't subpoena witnesses. You certainly don't indict anybody. It's just one of the absolute Unwritten but universally respected rules of federal prosecution that you don't inject yourself in the middle of elections. And I think Walsh made a very serious mistake in doing this. He could have waited. He could have done it earlier.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a court class. Yeah, it was a court fight. I mean, he tried to stop it and I had to sue to get clearance to write the book, which I did.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there is something to that. I should add that a couple things. One, I was gone from the office by that point, even though my opinion would not have been sought or believed.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's just also indicative of how someone who was convicted of multiple felonies could resurrect himself and become, you know, he's been a Fox News stalwart for many years and now he's taken the Charlton Heston seat at the NRA. But his embrace by the right is just indicative of a small signal of how far right the Republican Party has gone.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I mean, one of my first New Yorker stories when several years later I went to work on the New Yorker was a profile of Oliver North. So I profiled a guy I had prosecuted. And, you know, I think it's in a small way indicative of how far to the right the Republican Party has gone that Oliver North could become, remember, he was almost elected to the Senate. Right, he ran for the Senate in Virginia. And had it not been a three-way race may well have won.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And his convictions were overturned, and it was a deeply political environment because there was a parallel at the same time. Use immunity and the legal issue that ultimately sunk our case was that the court ruled that the immunized testimony that he gave before Congress somehow infected our trial. And thus his conviction had to be overturned. But that was in the future. And ultimately, the great thing about being the junior person is like, I wasn't responsible for winning or losing. I was just trying to do my best. It was an absolutely great experience.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was absolutely thrilling. I got to see great lawyers on both sides, John Kecker, who was a San Francisco defense lawyer mostly, was the lead prosecutor, and Brendan Sullivan, the great lawyers from Williams and Connolly, defended North. And it was this brawl of a trial that ended in a mixed verdict with North convicted on three counts, but acquitted, I think, of nine. Ultimately,”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Since water did. Since water. It was the absolute dream job to end all dream jobs for me. I was the low man on the totem plow, which I deserved to be and should have been. But I was on the totem pole. I was part of it. And I worked on the North case. That was my assignment.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Iran which plagues the United States. It's amazing how that country and the United States, the fraught relationship seems to afflict virtually every president who comes into office. But right, it was kind of the last Cold War scandal because the attempt to fund the Contras was basically a Cold War vehicle in Central America in this poor, sad, small country where the Reagan administration wanted to support the anti-communist rebels and the sort of the Democratic Party wanted to stay out of it. And that was the heart of the controversy.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While I was in my clerkship, Walter Mansfield, who was Lombard's best friend, also on the Second Circuit, participated in the decision to hire Lawrence Walsh as the Independent Counsel. And, you know, I ran Contra was sort of the next big deal scandal after Watergate. It was like 1988, 87, 88 versus 1974. And as soon as this happened, I thought this is what I want to work on. And Lombard actually not only recommended me, but let me out of my clerkship early so I could join Walsh's staff very close to the beginning of that investigation.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Display the field museum here if you haven't a few minutes. But he was very close friends with Walter Mansfield. If you remember the Independent Council law, there were three judges who appointed the Independent Council, the Justice Department.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no. I mean, and this was, you know, again, sort of the crazy way life works. I got a clerkship with a judge on the Second Circuit, J. Edward Lombard, who was 85 years old, born 1901, and he was part of this great network of Thomas E. Dewey assistants, the sort of moderate Republicans. Lombard was appointed to the bench by Eisenhower. He was great friends with, I mean, he was a protege of Dewey's. He was Henry Friendly, Walter Mansfield. That don't exist anymore. And Lombard even then could tell John Arsenal Holland.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, being an asshole is part of going to Harvard. So that was, you know, part of your awareness of the certainly.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did. I had every sense my sort of. You're supposed to go to college and open your mind. And I think the day I arrived at college, my mind was closed. I was going to go to the best law school that I could get into and then before you.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was more the latter, actually. I remember being really impressed with fond of looked up to the young prosecutors who worked for Ultra Ball Cox and then Leon Jaworski. I mean, they were the ones more than Woodward and Bernstein that I thought, wow, that's what I'd like to do. And so when they, for whatever reason, that's the path that seemed most appealing to me even then. And that feeling stuck with me for many, many years.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was a real life drama in every sense of the word, particularly just in the fact that there were new developments all the time. And I certainly remember, I don't remember it day by day, but when it came out that there were tapes of the White House. That's when you knew that this thing was going to just carry on to the end because that's when you know you knew that and that ultimately they were going to have to surrender them. And it was going to be bad for Nixon.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, that's a high-minded way of looking at it today. Well, I'm older now. Yeah, but I certainly in retrospect. Recognize that that was the case. But you”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was like following baseball in the sense that there were so many subplots and so many characters that you had to like learn whole teams. You know, you learn how to learn what the plumbers were and you had to learn who the investigators were and you had to learn who the members of the House Judiciary Committee were. And I guess. I was a liberal and a Democrat and rooting against Nixon. But what I mostly remember was just sort of loving the intrigue of it all and the drama of it. And that certainly was a certain certainty.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What you get on digital. So think of it as like a giant phone. I started reading the paper during the McGovern campaign in 1972. I remember that my parents would, I used to take the bus to school and they would tear out the political pages to give to me. But in 1974, I really started following the news. I was 14, and I was a huge baseball fan. And Watergate, I was a Mets fan as I remains. Yes, yes.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, two things. I first remember reading the newspaper for your younger listeners, maybe we should explain what a newspaper is. It was a big deal in those days. Yes, a physical representation”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which was a huge event in my mother's career. She covered Bobby Caddy's assassination. She was at the Chicago Convention down the street where she was teargassed. And we live not that far from Columbia University. And she would often be called in the middle of the night to go up there or whatever craziness. Well, Columbia was a...”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In shock that night, you know, his mother was home in the middle of the day. What was she doing there? Why wasn't she at work? I mean, that was the world I grew up in. And I thought it was great. And I loved the stories she worked on. And later as I became older, I would occasionally go with her on stuff.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She was. Well, first network news woman network news correspondent, or I think any kind of television American television reporter to go there. And I do, it's funny, she went in 1966 when I had just turned six years old. And the only thing I remember about that trip, which of course she talked about for years afterwards, was going with her to get her shots where she went. And I remember being horrified by the number of shots that she had to get. But, you know, I was always thrilled by her work. I mean, I was always proud of her. I mean, I often tell this story or of how when I was in first grade, I went home with some other kid for some reason at lunch, and I reported”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But notwithstanding the explicit message of don't do this, I think I saw the excitement, the fundamentally interesting nature of the work that they did. And even though, at least in my early part of my career when I went to law school and practiced law for a few years, I often refer to this as sort of coming into my genetic destiny. I always did student journalism. I spent most of my college years on the college newspaper. I met my wife on the college newspaper. I started freelancing when I was in law school and wrote my first book about a legal experience about working on the Iran-Contra investigation. So, you know, it was always there, but it was not... No, no, we all make it.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, your question about sort of our destiny, I think, is even more resonant in my case because at least explicitly, both my parents, my dad was involved in public television, was Bill Moyer's producer for many years. So they were both in media during my formative years, were explicit in their desire for me not to be a journalist, that they really, I mean, they liked their work, but they found the instability, the competitiveness, the mercurial nature of who's up and who's down. That's what I heard a lot at the dinner table.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One woman at each network, Nancy Dickerson at NBC, Pauline Frederick at CBS, and my mom at ABC. I mean, that's what it was like in those days. Yeah.”
2018-05-10 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 241 - Jeffrey Toobin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source