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: The Full Nunberg Edition
Is this real life?* Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in Trump world. Republic Report, which focuses on how money corrupts democracy, has met its abusive dream mate with the kleptocratic administration of President Donald J. Trump. Trump and his lieutenants personify how money and greed, mixed with disrespect
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Another For-Profit College Lobbyist To Join DeVos Education Department
Politico reports today that Diane Auer Jones is joining Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education Department as senior policy adviser to the secretary. Jones has been working at the U.S. Department of Labor since November, and worked in the George W. Bush administration as assistant secretary for postsecondary education. But in between, Jones was, from 2010 until 2015, senior
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New Criminal Indictment Highlights Continued Career College Fraud
A federal indictment unveiled Friday charges that the director of the Chicago campus of a non-profit career college conspired with five of her subordinates to defraud taxpayers of millions of dollars in federal student grants and loans. According to U.S. prosecutors, Marie Pickett, director at the Center for Employment Training’s Chicago location, and her staff obtained
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Trump Terrible 10: CAPS LOCK EDITION
If you wake up early in the morning and type “WITCH HUNT!” into Twitter, should you keep being president? I guess maybe. If, the next morning, you call your own attorney general “DISGRACEFUL!” on Twitter, do you know what you’re doing? I guess possibly. Is Bob Mueller closing in? I FUCKING HOPE SO. Since 2017, Republic
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Discredited Accreditor ACICS Fails to Get Many State Endorsements
With Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos considering the request of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) to be reinstated as a gatekeeper for federal student grants and loans, the discredited for-profit college accreditor has reached out to state higher education oversight agencies seeking endorsement. According to state officials and public records, at least
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New Fraud Suit Targets Call Center That Pushes Students to Predatory Colleges
A former employee of a call center that pushed students into predatory for-profit colleges has initiated a blockbuster whistleblower lawsuit on behalf of taxpayers against his former employer, Utah-based EduTrek, and against numerous for-profit colleges that have used the company to recruit new students. The complaint, filed with the federal court in Utah in 2016,
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Trump Terrible 10: Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company Edition
Faced with the horrific Parkland school shooting, we need moral leadership. Faced with incontrovertible proof that Russia is hacking our elections, we need determined leadership. Faced with intractable Middle East conflicts, stagnating wages, crumbling infrastructure, an opioid crisis, and so many other challenges, we need wise, capable leadership. Instead, somehow, we have a corrupt,
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Accreditor Scolds School That DeVos May Reward
Politico recently reported that Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos may be ready to reverse a 2016 Obama Administration decision that rejected the application of the predatory CollegeAmerica/Stevens-Henager chain to be treated as a non-profit school for purposes of Department regulation. Such an about-face by the DeVos Department would reduce accountability measures for the previously for-profit college chain,
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