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.
FTC Slaps Wrist of For-Profit College Marketer That Tricked Vets; Many Bad Wrists Remain
Last week the Federal Trade Commission announced it had reach a proposed settlement with a Pittsburgh-based marketing company called Victory Media. Victory had drawn attention for websites and print magazines that deceptively pitched a large audience of military troops and veterans on Kaplan University and other for-profit colleges with poor records of serving students. The
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General Kelly, General Dunford Met the Press. One Was Better.
Watching General John Kelly and then General Joseph Dunford brief the press in the same week, both addressing the deaths of Sgt. La David Johnson and three other Green Berets in Niger, was revealing. In his Thursday appearance in the White House press room, retired Marine General and Trump White House Chief of Staff Kelly
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Trump Terrible 10: Total and Complete Disgrace Edition
Congratulations, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. This week there was so much disgracefulness that, for once, you’re out of the countdown. (#11, according to our data.) President Trump, though, stick around. You’re definitely high in the ratings. Since mid-2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in the Trump administration. Republic
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With CollegeAmerica Trial Underway, Someone Just Posted An Unhinged Attack on Colorado’s Attorney General
A lawsuit pursued by Colorado’s attorney general, Cynthia Coffman, against CollegeAmerica went to trial this week in a Denver courtroom. It’s a bench trial — no jury; Judge Ross Buchanan will decide the facts. In this document required by the court, the two sides dispassionately describe for the judge what the case is about. But
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Jared-Ivanka “Ethics” Lawyer Helped Pharma Weaken Opioid Enforcement
A blockbuster Washington Post / 60 Minutes report Sunday detailed how the pharmaceutical lobby managed to strip the Drug Enforcement Administration of its best tool against drug companies that fuel the deadly opioid crisis by supplying prescription narcotics to crooked doctors and pharmacists. A 2016 law, pushed by revolving door Washington lobbyists and industry-friendly members of
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Trump Terrible 10: Self-Imposed National Crisis Edition
Donald Trump is darn angry and unhinged. He’s insulting his own cabinet members, malevolently tearing down health care, imperiling national security, acting as if Puerto Rico, where conditions remain bleak, is part of the Lesser Antilles. He hasn’t accomplished a single positive thing. He’s made the world much more ugly. Is there any way to
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Trump Terrible 10: Adult Day Care Edition
We had hoped Donald Trump’s disgracefulness wouldn’t include provoking a nuclear war. Lordy. Yeah, this was another disgraceful week in Trumpland. In fact, it’s been just four days since the end of the last disgraceful week. The Trump team’s disgracefulness is coming so fast that we now base our weeks on cat years. Since mid-2017, Republic
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Trump Terrible 10: Great Job A+ Moron Edition
Since mid-2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible 10” has ranked the week’s 10 most disgraceful figures in the Trump administration. (Actually, the disgracefulness has come so fast that we’ve published 19 countdowns in just under 17 weeks.) Republic Report, which focuses on how money corrupts democracy, has met its abusive dream mate with the kleptocratic administration of President Donald J. Trump.
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