Avril Haines, Joe Biden's director of national intelligence, is not a spy.
An international law expert, Haines helped force counterterror policy under Barack Obama.
She went on to serve as deputy CIA chief and deputy national security advisor. As DNI chief, she now oversees intelligence operations and budgets for the US’ 17 intelligence agencies as well as directly advising the president.
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According to JTA, her mother was the Jewish painter Adrian Rappin (originally Rappaport), and her non-Jewish father once wrote in an account about a trip with Haines to Israel that she identifies as Jewish. She is the first Jewish director of national intelligence, a position established in 2005. She is also the first woman to lead the intelligence community, and, having been confirmed on January 21 just one day after Biden took office, she was also his first Cabinet member.
In 2015, she was assigned to bridge a variety of differences between the CIA and a special US Senate task force led by Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California.
The issues included how much of the Bush administration-era torture to disclose as well as problems in cooperation between the sides.
In May 2020 Haines signed a letter along with many other Democrat foreign policy experts urging the party platform to take a more forceful position against Israeli settlement activity and to press forward with the two-state solution with the Palestinians.