The Winding Journey Of Avril Haines, Biden’s Pick To Lead U.S. Intelligence

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30 Ноя 2020, 21:09

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President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Avril Haines as the first woman to be the director of national intelligence, a position that oversees all 17 intelligence agencies. She’s shown here speaking after Biden introduced her in Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 24.

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She also loved rebuilding cars and airplanes, and eventually learned to fly.

«She bought a used Cessna and rebuilt the avionics herself and tried to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and crash landed near the Newfoundland coast,» said David Priess, a former CIA officer who’s written extensively about the agency’s leaders.

The aborted trip wasn’t a total disaster. Her co-pilot and flight instructor, David Davighi, later became her husband, and they launched an independent bookstore and cafe in a gritty part of Baltimore in the 1990s.

When President-elect Joe Biden introduced Haines last week as the first woman nominated as director of national intelligence, the top job in U.S. intelligence, he referred to Haines’ eclectic past.

«Brilliant, humble. Can talk literature and theoretical physics, fixing cars, flying planes, running a bookstore-cafe, all in a single conversation, because she’s done all that,» Biden said.

Haines, now 51, was in her early 30s by the time she graduated from Georgetown Law School and began her rapid ascent in government.

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President Barack Obama hosts a meeting of his National Security Council in 2016. Avril Haines, deputy national security advisor, is on the far right.

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Jones was the chief investigator on the Senate Intelligence Committee back in 2014, when CIA staffers were accused of breaking into the committee’s computers.

The CIA’s own inspector general criticized the actions of several CIA employees in his finding. But Haines led a review board that said no one at the agency should be disciplined. Jones says this case deserves another look when Haines has a Senate confirmation hearing.

«I think she she really lacked the leadership in this case, and I think the Senate needs to push her on it,» Jones said. «I think we need to learn more about that accountability board review and her role in it.»

If Haines is confirmed, she’ll be taking over an intelligence community that’s consistently been on the receiving end of criticism from President Trump.

In contrast, Biden has had good ties with the national security establishment and first worked with Haines more than a decade ago. That longstanding relationship could be key for someone who’s expected to part of the president’s daily national security briefing.

Haines kept a low profile in her previous government positions, but she did make brief comments when nominated by Biden.

«Mr. President-elect, you know I’ve never shied away from speaking truth to power,» she said. «I accept this nomination knowing that you would never want me to do otherwise … even when what I have to say may be inconvenient or difficult, and I assure you, there will be those times.»

Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.