Avril Haines: Joe Biden’s nominee for top intelligence post once held ‘erotica nights’ at bookstore

Avril Haines, Joe Biden’s pick to oversee the American intelligence apparatus, has sharply warned Donald Trump has “politicized” the US spy agencies by pushing them to present conclusions that align solely with his views.

The former deputy director of central intelligence, the first woman to hold that position, also owned a Baltimore independent bookstore in the mid-1990s that hosted “erotica nights.”

The first woman nominee to be director of national intelligence was the Obama administration official who decided against punishing intelligence community employees who were accused by the Senate Intelligence Community of improperly accessing the panel’s computer system.

The flap with the intel panel likely will be the focus of committee Republicans’ questions during her confirmation hearing, but an analysis of her record suggests Mr Biden and his team will muster the votes for her confirmation.

Senate Republicans, by the time she sits in their Hart Senate Office Building hearing room for those confirmation hearings, may feel less loyal to Donald Trump. If so, they might care a little less about Ms Haines’ recent criticisms of the outgoing commander in chief.

“This pressure is having an impact; the intelligence community is becoming politicized,” she and two other former intelligence officials who held senior posts during the Obama administration wrote in an April column.

“Every president since the creation of the U.S. intelligence community after World War II has supported this principle — until Donald Trump,” the trio wrote. “Trump has repeatedly pressured the intelligence community to present analytic judgments consistent with his views, rather than those of its expert analysts.”

The DNI position was created under legislation and signed into law in 2004 by then-President George W Bush. The DNI’s office handles overall management of the intelligence progress, but does not run covert operations; that’s still operated under the powers of the CIA boss.

But, if confirmed, it will be up to Ms Haines to oversee the preparation of the Presidential Daily Brief and present it to Mr Biden (or assign one of her top deputies to do so).

The incoming president is expected to receive an intel briefing each day, something Mr Trump demanded his staff change early in his term. He found it repetitive and reportedly disagreed with some or many of the intel community’s findings.

The Trump-IC feud has never subsided, with his intel briefing not on his public schedule again on Monday. He has gotten it in person only a handful of times since returning to the campaign trail in October.

The likely new top briefer, Ms Haines, will be no stranger to her new colleagues, some of who were also at the deputy level in their respective organisations during the Obama era.

After her stint as deputy CIA director, she shifted to the White House to become Mr Obama’s deputy national security adviser. Among her duties was to chair the influential “deputies committee,” a group of top officials that helped craft policy options for the president.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner called Ms Haines "smart and capable.”  

“The sooner we can get a confirmed DNI in place to start fixing the damage the last four years have done to our intelligence agencies, the better,” he said, adding he expects the nominee will “face rigorous questioning from Senators on both sides of the aisle.”