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: Search for the Leakers Edition
Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. This week we’re actually counting down the top 15. Because sifting through all the backstabbing leaks and other disclosures from this administration, it took us hours this morning to cut down the list from over 100 disgraceful people, and
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Inside a For-Profit College Conversion: Lucrative Ties, Troubling Actions
The once for-profit Art Institutes are now run by the non-profit, faith-based Dream Center. But they’re connected to the new Woz U and a web of for-profit companies — raising questions of conflict of interest and legal compliance. On the phone, Brent Richardson, the CEO and co-chairman of the new non-profit Dream Center Education Holdings
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Trump Terrible 10: Pre-Ordered Nobel Peace Prize Edition
In these tough times, hold your cheeldren close and comfort them with a repurposed Federal Trade Commission pamphlet. Yeah. Y’all know this shit as well as I do, so this week let’s get this done quickly, OK? Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. Republic Report,
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Trump Chicken: Too Chicken To Testify Before Mueller?
You’ve always loved Trump Steaks. Now say hello to Trump Chicken! What? We’ll explain: Special counsel Robert Mueller wants to question President Trump about Russiagate. Trump’s lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, are telling him not to testify. If Trump won’t submit voluntarily, a Mueller subpoena may be coming. Will Trump answer questions, or is Trump Chicken?
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Trump Terrible 10: great Energy and unending Stamina Edition
In the backstabbing, leaking, corrupt, erratic, no-collusion Trump White House, where the boss works a largely ceremonial three-hour day, we can always count on our cartoon president to assure us everything’s just great. “The White House,” Donald Trump tweeted this week, “is running very smoothly despite phony Witch Hunts etc. There is great Energy and
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Senators to DeVos: Aide Diane Jones Has Significant Conflicts of Interest
Ten Democratic senators wrote to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos late last week that Diane Auer Jones, who formerly worked for a number of controversial for-profit colleges, has a “significant number of conflicts of interest and appearances of impropriety” in her current role as DeVos’s senior policy advisor. The senators charge that Jones “has a
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Trump Terrible 10: Untruthful Slime Ball Edition
In one of the trillion tweets Donald Trump sent out this week, he complained about the FBI’s raid on Michael Cohen and the supposed death of the attorney-client privilege, and concluded, “All lawyers are deflated and concerned!” This particular lawyer, though, was still fully inflated after the raid, which was presumably approved at the highest
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Trump Terrible 10: Mueller Mueller Mueller! Edition
“It’s a disgrace. It’s, frankly, a real disgrace. It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for,” Donald Trump told reporters, with his generals, his new national security walrus, and his faithful VP lapdog at his side. But, sadly, Trump wasn’t talking about Bashar al-Assad’s
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