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.
From Country Club Republican to #MAGA Bully: The Unmasking of Brett Kavanaugh
Sitting at the witness table, the federal judge yelled; he bullied senators and impugned accusers; he made false statements about things big and small; he rejected credible allegations of sexual assault; he refused to answer questions; he worked to block an independent investigation of his actions; he attacked the Clintons and railed about a left wing
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Trump Terrible 10: Kavanaugh Confrontation Edition
A woman, Christine Blasey Ford, came forward on her own and provided a detailed account of a drunken Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulting her in high school. A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, when contacted by reporters who had heard about an incident from former Yale students, said that a drunken Kavanaugh exposed himself to her in college.
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Powerhouse PR Firm’s Reckless Attack on Kavanaugh’s Accuser
We now know that when conservative lawyer and close Brett Kavanaugh friend Edward Whelan attempted his disastrous Perry Mason tweetstorm suggesting that one of Kavanaugh’s prep school classmates was the one who assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, he did not do so alone. He was, at least, aided and abetted by the big DC firm CRC Public
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Who Kavanaugh is Really For: Big Corporations
Brett Kavanaugh now faces a credible charge of sexual assault, as well as powerful evidence that he repeatedly lied to the Senate to conceal, among other bad deeds, his improper use of stolen documents as a Bush White House aide. Even religious conservatives and others at the grassroots who have supported Kavanaugh should take this moment
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What Brett Kavanaugh’s Supporters Are Saying About the Sexual Assault Charge
Below is what Brett Kavanaugh’s supporters are saying right now about the allegation by Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her when he was in high school. None of it looks good for Kavanaugh. — Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a close friend of Kavanaugh, after deleting a
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Republican Attorneys General Use Corporate Cash To Lobby for Kavanaugh
At a time when serious doubts have been raised about Brett Kavanaugh’s honesty and personal conduct, Republican state attorneys general are putting their own integrity at issue by running a political campaign to confirm Kavanaugh. On the website of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), there’s a page for you to provide your contact info
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Trump, Inevitably, Adds Kavanaugh to List of Those Treated Very Unfairly ™
[LATEST UPDATE 12-23-20] It was only a matter of time before President Trump declared that Brett Kavanaugh has been Treated Very Unfairly™. In remarks to reporters before a trip to hurricane-ravaged North Carolina, Trump, according to the White House transcript, commented on senators weighing the Kavanaugh nomination: At the United Nations a few days later,
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Betsy DeVos Had A Plan to Prop Up For-Profit College Cronies. It’s Unraveling.
After a decade of revelations about for-profit colleges blatantly ripping off taxpayers and ruining students’ lives, it was remarkable that Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos set out to dismantle all the Obama administration reforms aimed at holding such predatory schools accountable. Remarkable, but not surprising, given that Donald Trump formerly ran predatory, unlicensed Trump
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