For 8 Years, A ‘Wall Street Journal’ Story Haunted His Career. Now He Wants It Fixed

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For years, Robert Shireman, shown here at his home in Berkeley, Calif., has been accused of corruptly sharing insider information with investors while serving as a federal official. Those claims aren’t true. But they live on.

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A 2013 the Wall Street Journal article suggested Robert Shireman had been under investigation for corruption, without a basis for that claim. In 2019, two Journal opinion pieces claimed he had left Washington in a scandal. That claim had to be corrected.

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Robert Shireman says he respects the Journal. «I thought they would at least take some kind of corrective action,» Shireman says, «And I’m quite surprised that they did kind of less than nothing.»

Carolyn Fong for NPR

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Carolyn Fong for NPR

Robert Shireman says he respects the Journal. «I thought they would at least take some kind of corrective action,» Shireman says, «And I’m quite surprised that they did kind of less than nothing.»

Carolyn Fong for NPR

In early 2019, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial and an op-ed in short succession denouncing Shireman. The editorial said he was «caught playing footsie with a short-seller betting against for-profit colleges.» The op-ed wrongly said he had been «caught sharing information with a short-seller.»

Senator who revived allegations also took money from for-profit colleges

Shireman demanded corrections several weeks later. The Journal’s conservative editorial department — run separately from the newsroom — corrected the sequence of events and removed a phrase that said he had been «exiled» from the government. But it kept the false claim that Shireman had been caught sharing information with a short-seller in the column and kept the editorial’s line about him playing footsie.

Then, this past spring, pro-business activists set up the website College Choice Killers that trashed Shireman and others who worked on the for-profit college loan policy. The Journal’s article from 2013 was given place of pride. Conservative economist Richard Vedder even compared Shireman to the Taliban. (The site was taken down after Halperin repeatedly challenged its veracity.)

At a hearing a few weeks later, Sen. Burr warned a Biden education nominee about his past proximity to «potentially unethical conduct at the department under the Obama administration.» Burr spoke of emails sent from private accounts in «collaboration with short-sellers on market moving information … to try to hide the public scrutiny in furtherance of a partisan objective.»

Burr noted no charges were filed by the Justice Department. He didn’t mention Shireman by name, but the senator’s spokeswoman confirmed that was whom he was referring to. The nominee had been a senior Education Department official with Shireman and who for several years headed Shireman’s former policy institute.

Like Sloan’s former outfit, Burr has his own ties to the for-profit college industry. Burr received more than $47,000 in contributions from the industry toward his 2010 and 2016 Senate bids, according to the campaign watchdog Open Secrets.

In late June, disturbed by the College Choice Killers site and Burr’s remarks, Shireman emailed reporters and editors at the Wall Street Journal. In correspondence he shared with NPR, Shireman asked for corrections on its 2013 article.

The fact of the investigation was fair game, he says. But Shireman strenuously objected to the claims of the mishandling of «sensitive» material and the invocation of conflicts of interest and SEC investigations into investors being tipped off. He noted that his departure preceded the announcement of the policy and that he had nothing to do with the logistics of its public release. Furthermore, investigators said they found nothing wrong with the way the department’s leadership and staff had handled sensitive information or the policy’s release.

The Wall Street Journal responds

Late last month, Shireman received a reply from Jay Sapsford, the Wall Street Journal’s deputy Washington bureau chief.

In an email reviewed by NPR, Sapsford wrote that the paper and others at the time were covering «how financial actors were seeking information that would give them advantages in trading securities and how easily such information flows among agency officials, congressional aides, lobbyists, purveyors of political intelligence and investors themselves.» (Through the spokesman, Sapsford and Mullins declined to be interviewed for this story.)

Sapsford noted the inspector general report used the word «sensitive» 39 times.

«We determined this flow of information to be a useful background to the developments of this story. We stand by that judgment.»

Shireman points to that response and nearly sputters in incredulity, especially given his respect for the news side of the paper. The inspector general had explicitly exonerated department officials, including Shireman, of sharing sensitive information outside the department.

«I thought [The Wall Street Journal] would at least take some kind of corrective action,» Shireman says, «And I’m quite surprised that they did kind of less than nothing.»

Melanie Sloan, the former anti-corruption crusader, tells NPR she was right to raise questions about short-sellers’ influence on policy, and about Shireman, despite the lack of any serious findings against him.

«I don’t have feelings about him now,» Sloan says. «It’s not an issue I thought about for 10 years. I just don’t.»

«In Washington, do people get hurt all the time?» she asks. «Yeah, all the time.»