About Jeff Robbins

Jeff Robbins

Jeff Robbins

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on AmazonBarnes & NobleApple Books and Google Play.

Robbins, a nationally recognized First Amendment lawyer and civil litigator, served as chief counsel for the Democratic senators on the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and as deputy chief counsel for the Democratic senators on the United States Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. In 1999 and 2000, he served as a United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland.

Between 1987 and 1990, he was an assistant United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts, where he focused on civil fraud cases and money laundering investigations. There he was tapped to be the district’s first chief of the Asset Forfeiture Unit. He was also twice appointed as a special assistant attorney general in Massachusetts, representing the secretary of the commonwealth.

He has written widely on politics, foreign policy and national security matters for the Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, The Times of Israel and the New York Observer. He is a visiting professor of the practice of political science at Brown University, where he teaches courses on congressional investigations and political journalism. He has received awards for public service from the United States Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the General Services Administration. From 2012 to 2014, he was chairman of the Anti-Defamation League’s New England board of directors, and from 2001 through 2004, he was president of the World Affairs Council of Boston.

He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Joanne. They have two children, two golden retrievers and four cats.

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From All Directions: America's Become a Place For Hate Sep 02, 2025

"You know," the late William F. Buckley Jr. once mused, "I've spent my life separating the right from the kooks." The conservative commentator was famously pugilistic, an ideological brawler, in fact, unrelentingly caustic, if eruditely so, about wha... Read More

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Slouching Toward Dictatorship: Trump Reigns and America Sleepwalks Aug 26, 2025

Seems like only yesterday when warnings that Donald Trump qualified as a neo-fascist and that what he was selling qualified as neo-fascism guaranteed rolled eyes, dismissals that the warnings were hysterical, and cries of "Trump Derangement Syndrome,... Read More

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Sub-Zero: Alaska Coffee Klatch Nets Nothing for Ukraine, Plenty for Putin Aug 19, 2025

Departing Alaska after a mega-hyped meeting with Vladimir Putin that gave the Russian dictator plenty to smile about, President Donald Trump trotted out the customary hogwash. It was, he proclaimed, "a great and very successful day in Alaska." For so... Read More

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Infrequently Asked Questions: Amid Misery in Gaza, Some Things Don't Compute -- Part 2 Aug 12, 2025

On CNN last week, analyst Scott Jennings asked Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, like many a critic of Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip, if Rogin had an alternative to militarily removing Hamas from power in Gaza. Rogin's ... Read More