Leon Wagener

Leon Wagener was born in Washington, D.C. His father Leon Sr., a veteran of World War II, was in finance. His mother Shirley worked in the Richard Nixon White House and was one of the first female press secretaries. She was proudly an “unindicted co-conspirator.”

Wagener first started as a copy boy at the Wall Street Journal in Washington, D.C.; he then worked as a news assistant at the New York Times Washington bureau. From 1968 to 1974, Wagener served in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. After leaving the Coast Guard, he studied journalism at the University of Maryland. He joined the National Enquirer in the early seventies and worked as the chief for the Washington and Miami bureaus.

Wagener is the author of bestselling biographies of Neil Armstrong and Jodie Foster and wrote and contributed to eight political books about the Clintons and Obamas, including The Amateur, The Truth About Hillary, and Blood Feud, which were New York Times bestsellers.