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

[4][5] Her 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.

[8] After graduating from Hunter College High School, Haines moved to Japan for a year, where she enrolled at the Kodokan, an elite judo institute in Tokyo.

However, later that year, she dropped out and with her future husband purchased a bar in Fell's Point, Baltimore, which had been seized in a drug raid;[5] they turned the location into an independent bookstore and café.

[16] In 2002, she became a law clerk for United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Judge Danny Julian Boggs.

[21] On April 18, 2013, Obama nominated Haines to serve as Legal Adviser of the Department of State, to fill the position vacated after Harold Hongju Koh resigned to return to teaching at Yale Law School.

[22] However, on June 13, 2013, Obama withdrew Haines's nomination to be Legal Adviser of the Department of State, choosing instead to select her as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

[5] Newsweek reported Haines was sometimes called in the middle of the night to evaluate whether a suspected terrorist could be "lawfully incinerated" by a drone strike.

[41] The ACLU criticized the Obama policy on drone killings as failing to meet international human rights norms.

[42] 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 also resulted, according to human rights groups, in killing innocent civilians.

[54] 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 Haines had worked were removed from her fellowship résumé posted on the website of the Brookings Institution.

[62] Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mark Warner (D-VA) questioned Haines about U.S.–China relations and, specifically, whether she shared their opinion that China was an adversary.

[63][62] When questioned about the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol building, Haines said it was the primary responsibility of the FBI to investigate domestic threats, though she also 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.

[66] In May 2022, she warned against Russia and China's efforts to "try to make inroads with partners of ours across the world," mentioning Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as examples.