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.
Trump Terrible 10: #MAGA-Land Theme Park Edition
Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful people in Trump world. We’re on vacation this week! But it’s fun to have togetherness activities here in the vacation house, and I hate board games and, especially, puzzles. So we’ve developed attractions for a new theme park, #MAGA-Land, where over-priced emoluments will
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Kushner Teaming With For-Profit College Backers As Trump-DeVos Assault on Students Mounts
The trade publication Inside Higher Ed today reports that Trump senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner convened a meeting last week at the White House to discuss innovation in higher education. Reviewing the reported attendee list, and considering that the meeting comes on top of three Department of Education announcements attacking Obama-era higher ed regulations,
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Scammers Use My Pictures To Swindle People on Facebook
With the recent and mounting revelations of Russia creating fake profiles to influence U.S. elections, of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica misusing personal data, of celebrities buying phony Twitter followers to pump up their reputations, and other troubling online behavior, I want to tell about another social media scam, for which I am, somehow, one of
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Trump Terrible 10: Crooked Vile Racist President Edition
Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. This week’s list is simply for the record; we don’t have anything to offer that others didn’t say convincingly over the weekend. But damn. As with Charlottesville a year ago, there’s little point in counting down nine other dishonest,
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DeVos Aide Tailors Decisions to the Predatory Colleges That Employed Her
In discussions early this year, members of a U.S. Department of Education team led by senior adviser Diane Auer Jones told executives from Dream Center Education Holdings (DCEH), run by CEO Brent Richardson, to publicly represent that two of the company’s Art Institutes schools remained accredited, even though the schools’ accreditor had written the company
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Coverage of Obama Official’s Attack on Climate Lawsuits Fails to Mention He’s An Oil Industry Lawyer
Ken Salazar, a former Obama Interior Secretary and Democratic senator, spoke at an oil and gas industry gathering last Thursday and was critical of the wave of lawsuits brought by U.S. cities and counties seeking damages from the industry for the effects of climate change. “I don’t agree with those who take those positions into the
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Trump Terrible 10: Vile Yes Men Edition
President Don Trump is in full out-of-control control now, with General Kelly all passive-aggressive-checked-out, and grownups like McMaster and Cohn long gone. Those thriving now are the yes men and a few yes women who swiftly and disgracefully rationalize POTUS’s lies and execute his Orwellian orders. So this countdown, as usual, writes itself. Since 2017, Republic
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New Trump-DeVos Loan Relief Rule Trashes Students’ Rights, Aids Predatory Colleges
The Betsy DeVos Department of Education, about an hour ago, released a proposed rule to repeal and replace the 2016 Obama borrower defense regulation, which was aimed at cancelling federal student loan debts for people who are ripped off by predatory colleges. The new DeVos rule represents a complete negation of the important reforms in
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