About: David Halperin
Twitter: @DaHalperin
Bio: David Halperin is the co-founder and editor of Republic Report. Halperin, a self-employed lawyer based in Washington DC, engages in public advocacy, investigative work, and legal representation on a wide range of issues, including higher education, climate change, democracy, corruption, open government, and national security. He also advises organizations and companies on strategy, policy, communications, and legal matters. He is of counsel to Public.Resource.org, a non-profit focused on making legal and government materials available for free to the public.
Halperin’s investigative and advocacy work on predatory for-profit colleges since 2010 has spurred reforms in policy and regulations, triggered law enforcement investigations, and led to the closure of numerous deceptive schools.
Halperin was from 2004 until 2012 the founding director of Campus Progress and senior vice president at the Center for American Progress. Before that, he was: senior policy advisor for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign; founding executive director of the American Constitution Society; White House speechwriter and special assistant for national security affairs to President Clinton; co-founder of the Internet company Progressive Networks (now called RealNetworks); counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee; law clerk to U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell (D.D.C.); research assistant to Robert S. McNamara; and research analyst at the Arms Control Association.
Halperin has represented clients in the U.S. Supreme Court and various state and federal courts. Among many other efforts, Halperin helped represent Greenpeace in an unprecedented 2004 Miami criminal jury trial over protest activity, resulting in a directed verdict of acquittal; aided climate groups facing investigation by the House Science Committee during 2015-16; and represented Public Resource in landmark copyright litigation from 2012 to 2024 over efforts to make federal regulations publicly available online without charge.
Halperin writes at Republic Report, and his articles also have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Politico, Slate, Foreign Policy, and other outlets. In recent years he has testified before the House Oversight Committee and at several federal agencies, and he has spoken at major conferences and events across the country. Halperin has served since 2007 on the board of directors of Public Citizen.
Halperin graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School.
No Mr. Barr, Trump Did Not “Fully Cooperate” with Mueller
Attorney General William Barr’s press conference this morning in advance of his release of the redacted Mueller report was more like the warmup act at a Trump campaign rally. Playing to his audience of one, Barr repeatedly invoked Trump’s “no collusion” branding. And on the issue of obstruction, Barr’s conclusion was utterly false. Barr indicated
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Ryan Zinke Turns Trump Tenure Into Goldmine, Literally
As the Department of the Interior’s inspector general did the right thing and began a conflict-of-interest investigation of newly-confirmed Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, the previous Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, continued his own egregious course of doing the wrong thing. As the AP reported Tuesday, Zinke has accepted a job with Nevada-based U.S. Gold
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DeVos Takes A Page From Trump: Blame Obama
Faced with a roomful of Democrats, now in control of the House of Representatives, who questioned her hard about the Department of Education’s failures to follow the law, help students, or prevent ugly collapses of bad-acting for-profit college chains, Secretary Betsy DeVos took a page from her boss, Donald Trump: She repeatedly blamed Barack Obama’s
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On For-Profit College Shutdowns, Lobbyist Gunderson Has No Shame
Regarding the recent epidemic of for-profit college closures, Steve Gunderson, the chief lobbyist for that industry, has taken his shamelessness to new heights — brazenly suggesting that the shuttered schools have no connection to his lobby group, CECU, when he knows full well that they used to be members, and mischaracterizing industry critics’ views on
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CollegeAmerica’s Legal Battles Go On
Just before Christmas, the Center for Excellence in Higher Education, which operates CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University, dismissed its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, which had, in the final year of the Obama administration, refused to recognize the company’s schools as non-profit for purposes of federal regulations; the Department under Obama had
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State Colleges Seduced By For-Profit, Online Education
As Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education works this morning to outsource more and more taxpayer-funded student aid to predatory for-profit online education companies, Wall Street investors see a new gold rush. Seeking to avoid the stigma and regulatory requirements of openly running a for-profit college, they are finding willing partners in another taxpayer-funded sector: state
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Senators’ Bill Would Put Serious Curbs On Predatory Colleges
Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) today introduced the Preventing Risky Operations from Threatening the Education and Career Trajectories of Students (PROTECT Students) Act of 2019, a bill that would enshrine in law many key reforms sought by advocates for veterans and other students in order to prevent predatory practices by for-profit colleges.
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Trump Interior Nominee David Bernhardt Is the Swamp
In October 2016, candidate Donald Trump unveiled a package of government ethics reforms that he said would “drain the swamp” in Washington, DC; it included a ban on former federal employees lobbying the government for five years and stricter rules on what constitutes lobbying. He seemed to be promising to undermine the power of special
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