27 Facts About Avril Haines

Avril Danica Haines was born on August 27,1969 and is an American lawyer who served as the seventh director of national intelligence in the Biden administration.

Avril Haines is the first woman to serve in this role.

Avril Haines grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Avril Haines's father, Thomas H Haines, was a biochemist who graduated with a PhD from Rutgers University and helped in the formation of the CUNY School of Medicine, where he served as the chair of the biochemistry department.

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

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

Avril Haines 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.

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.

The office of the deputy director is not subject to Senate confirmation, with Avril Haines subsequently taking office on August 9,2013, the final day of Morrell's tenure.

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 was 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 fundamental challenges the world is facing, and was designated the program's director in May 2020, replacing Nicholas Lemann.

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

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.

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.

When questioned about the January 6,2021, storming of the Capitol building, Avril Haines said it was the primary responsibility of the FBI to investigate domestic threats, though she committed to collaborating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to evaluate the public threat of QAnon, a conspiracy theory promoted by some supporters of President Donald Trump.

Avril Haines was the first nominee of the Biden administration to be confirmed, and was sworn in the next day by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Avril Haines was awarded the Australian Intelligence Medal as part of the 2024 King's Birthday Honours by the Australian Government.