Christopher Fonzone, President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as the general counsel for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines, previously worked for the Chinese government and Chinese telecom giant Huawei, and would not vow against doing so once again.
During a May 18 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Fonzone described his work for Huawei saying, “In 2018, the firm asked for help in answering general questions from the client about how U.S. administrative law works – specifically in the context of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and the subsequent rule-making – including the mechanics of the when and how judicial review might occur. I did less than ten hours of work on the questions and provided my analysis to colleagues at the firm, and have received no follow up since.”
In follow up questions, Fonzone admitted in some instances he had turned declined to work on specific issues at Sidley, but not when dealing with work for Hauwei and the Chinese government.