29 Facts About Avril Haines

Avril Haines previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Obama administration; the first woman to hold either position.

In 1988, Avril Haines enrolled in the University of Chicago where she studied theoretical physics.

In 1991 Avril Haines took up flying lessons in New Jersey, where she met her future husband, David Davighi.

Avril Haines's later graduated with her bachelor of arts in physics in 1992.

In 1992, Avril Haines moved to Baltimore, and enrolled as a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University.

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However, later that year, Avril Haines dropped out and with her future husband purchased a bar in Fell's Point, Baltimore, which had been seized in a drug raid; they turned the location into an independent bookstore and cafe.

Avril Haines's named the store Adrian's Book Cafe, after her late mother; Adrian's realistic oil paintings filled the store.

Avril Haines's served as the president of the Fell's Point Business Association until 1998.

In 2001, Avril Haines became a legal officer at the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

From 2003 until 2006, Avril Haines worked in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, first in the Office of Treaty Affairs and then in the Office of Political Military Affairs.

From 2007 until 2008, Avril Haines worked for the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations as Deputy Chief Counsel for the Majority Senate Democrats .

Avril Haines worked for the State Department as the assistant legal adviser for treaty affairs from 2008 to 2010, when she was appointed to serve in the office of the White House Counsel as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs at the White House.

Avril Haines was nominated to replace Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy and former acting director.

Avril Haines was the first woman ever to hold the office of the deputy director, while Gina Haspel was the first female career intelligence officer to be named Director.

Avril Haines chose not to discipline them, overruling the CIA Inspector General.

Newsweek reported Avril Haines was sometimes called in the middle of the night to evaluate whether a suspected terrorist could be "lawfully incinerated" by a drone strike.

Avril Haines was instrumental in establishing the legal framework and policy guidelines for the drone strikes, which targeted suspected terrorists in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan, but resulted, according to human rights groups, in killing innocent civilians.

Opponents of US drone warfare have noted that Avril Haines redacted the minimum criteria for an individual to be "nominated" for lethal action, that the term "nominated" is a deceptive euphemism for targeting people for assassination, and that the drone guidelines allow for the assassination of US citizens without due process.

Avril Haines's is a senior research scholar and deputy director for the Columbia World Projects, a program designed to bring to bear academic scholarship on some of the most basic and fundamental challenges the world is facing, and was designated the program's next director in May 2020, replacing Nicholas Lemann.

Avril Haines is a fellow at the Human Rights Institute and National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School.

Avril Haines has been a member of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service.

Avril Haines's is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University.

Avril Haines has consulted for Palantir Technologies, a data processing and analytics software solutions company accused of assisting the Trump administration with immigrant detention programs, and was an employee of WestExec Advisors, a consulting firm with a secretive client list that includes high-tech start-ups seeking Pentagon contracts.

In late June 2020, shortly after taking on the role of overseeing foreign policy and national security considerations for the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign transition team, references to Palantir and other corporations for which Avril Haines had worked were removed from her fellowship resume posted on the website of the Brookings Institution.

Avril Haines said there were "better" techniques than torture, and that it was inhumane, degrading, and unlawful.

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Wyden asked if Avril Haines agreed with the CIA Inspector General's conclusion that it was wrong for CIA agents to hack the computers of Senate staffers investigating the use of CIA torture during the Bush administration.

Avril Haines said she agreed with the Inspector General's apology for the hack.

Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner questioned Haines about U S -China relations and, specifically, whether she shared their opinion that China was an adversary.

Avril Haines's was the first nominee to be confirmed by the Senate, and was sworn in the next day by Vice President Kamala Harris.