President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the US intelligence community, Jay Clayton, repeatedly refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.

When pressed by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff with a direct question, "Who won the 2020 election?", Clayton responded, "I'm not going to do this with you." He later avoided using the word "won" even after further questioning.

In an exchange with Senator Mark Kelly, Clayton stated that Biden "had the most electoral votes" and "was declared the winner," but stopped short of saying he won. Kelly pressed: "So he won the election?" Clayton replied: "That's your characterization."

The nominee's evasiveness comes as Trump continues to baselessly claim the 2020 election was stolen. Trump has never conceded defeat, despite Biden winning both the Electoral College (306-232) and the popular vote by over 7 million votes.

Democrats accused Clayton of being afraid to contradict Trump. Senator Kelly argued that if Clayton cannot disagree with Trump in a hearing, he would not do so in private meetings. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer questioned Clayton's fitness to lead intelligence agencies.

The hearing raised concerns that Trump may politicize intelligence agencies to support his election fraud narrative. The 2020 election is expected to feature prominently in Trump's upcoming national address.

Source: www.aljazeera.com