Avril
Haines, the Director of United States National Intelligence, has decided to
undertake a damage assessment due to confidential documents ending up at former
President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. Haines sent
a letter announcing the same to House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff
and House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, CNN and POLITICO reported.

Who is
Avril Haines?

Avril
Haines, 52, is currently the director of National Intelligence in President Joe
Biden’s administration. A lawyer by training, Haines is the second woman to
serve the post. Prior to her role as National Intelligence chief, Haines has
served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA). Her tenure at the CIA was in the Obama
administration and she became the first woman to take up the role.

Avril
Haines was born on August 27, 1969 to Adrian Rappin and Thomas H. Haines.
Growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Haines’ mother died when she
was only 15 years old. Her father Thomas H Haines is a biochemist with a PhD
from Rutgers University.

Avril
Haines did her schooling from Hunter College High School. Upon graduation,
Haines moved to Japan for a year where she enrolled at the Kodokan, a premier
judo institute. Haines subsequently went on to join University of Chicago where
she studied theoretical physics.

She then
went on to enrol as a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University. She later
dropped out after her later-to-be-husband David Davighi purchased a bar in
Baltimore which had been seized in a drug raid and turned it into an
independent book store and café.

In 1998, Avril
Haines enrolled at Georgetown University Law Center. She received her juris
doctor in 2001.

Haines’
career in government began at the legal officer at the Hague Conference on
Private International Law. She became a law clerk for United States Court of
Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2002. From 2003 to 2006, Haines worked at 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.

Haines
joined the State Department in the Barack Obama administration in 2008. In
2010, Haines was appointed to serve in the office of the White House Counsel as
Deputy Assistant to the President. In 2013, President Obama appointed Avril
Haines Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After
leaving the White House, Haines worked in the private sector before being named
chief of National Intelligence in the Biden administration.