GEOFF BENNETT: Another Trump nominee for a top post faced senators today.

U.S.

attorney Jay Clayton appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing to become director of national intelligence.

The job is largely focused on foreign threats and national security.

But, as Nick Schifrin reports, much of today's hearing focused instead on the recent past.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Today on Capitol Hill, a hearing that was supposed to be about the future of the intelligence community was instead dominated by the history of the 2020 election.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Who won the 2020 election?

JAY CLAYTON, U.S.

Director of National Intelligence Nominee: I'm not going to do this with you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Jay Clayton is the president's nominee for director of national intelligence, a lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, President Trump's first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and most recently U.S.

attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the Justice Department's most prestigious roles.

SEN.

MARK WARNER (D-VA): Do you deny that Joe Biden won the 2020 election?

JAY CLAYTON: Senator, I'm not an election denier.

Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And yet repeatedly in response to Democratic senators, Clayton refused to use the word won to describe Joe Biden and the 2020 election.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF: Who won the 2020 election?

JAY CLAYTON: I have answered.

I have answered.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF: Answer it.

What is your answer?

JAY CLAYTON: I have given you my answer.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF: What is your answer?

You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election.

JAY CLAYTON: No, I think... SEN.

JON OSSOFF: But you ask to lead America's intelligence community?

Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions?

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I say it was rigged, just like the election was rigged in 2020.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Since 2020, President Trump has claimed he won that election.

And "PBS News Hour" has learned that, tomorrow night, he will unveil new purported details in what he has long claimed without hard evidence was fraud.

Part of the president's efforts to find fraud ensnared his last director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

She says that President Trump directed her to observe an FBI raid on an election office in Fulton County, Georgia.

By statute, the director of national intelligence is barred from participating in domestic law enforcement or intelligence collection.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF: Are you aware that former Director Gabbard testified that her presence at the raid was -- quote -- "requested by the president"?

JAY CLAYTON: I'm not aware of that until now.

NICK SCHIFRIN: That did not sit well with Virginia Democrat and committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner.

SEN.

MARK WARNER: And I trust you.

I know you, but it strains credibility to think that you were not aware of Director Gabbard's intervention in a domestic election activities in Fulton County.

JAY CLAYTON: To be clear, the ODNI's role is principally outside the United States.

NICK SCHIFRIN: There are other vital issues concerning the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, including its size and scope.

Recently, acting Director Bill Pulte launched a wave of firings, a downsizing driven by President Trump and supported by Intelligence Committee Chairman Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton.

SEN.

TOM COTTON (R-AR): The ODNI has unfortunately become yet another bloated agency that incentivizes bureaucratic make-work as opposed to genuine intelligence work.

JAY CLAYTON: There needs to be a place of oversight, a place to resolve conflict.

I look at it as a board of director's role.

And to the extent that the ODNI has gotten into operations or started to play the roles of some of those other agencies, it probably should pull back.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on Clayton's nomination early next week.

He would need all nine Republican votes if the committee's eight Democrats all opposed his nomination.

For perspective on today's hearing, we turn to Fred Fleitz, who had a 25-year career in the intelligence community.

During the first Trump administration, he was deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff to the National Security Council staff.

He is now vice chair of the American Security at the America First Policy Institute.

Fred Fleitz, thanks very much.

Welcome.

FRED FLEITZ, Former CIA Analyst: Good to be there.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Is Jay Clayton the right person for the job?

FRED FLEITZ: I think so.

I was very impressed with him today.

He came off as a distinguished leader, a distinguished manager, someone who has a very good rapport with Congress, who has experience dealing with congressional oversight.

He also talked about his intelligence experience, his work as a judge dealing with counterterrorism, narcotrafficking.

I think this makes them a good choice and someone who will help implement the president's desire to reform and downsize the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Let me ask, though, about the number of times that Clayton was asked by Democratic senators, also Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, about whether Biden - - quote -- "won" the election in 2020.

Clayton refused to use that word, instead saying Biden was -- quote -- "certified."

What do you make of that?

Is that important?

FRED FLEITZ: I think it's a shame that the Democrats, six years after the 2020 election, still want to make an issue out of that.

The Democrats want to make an issue over who won the election.

Really, they wasted a hearing, which was an opportunity to discuss serious national security issues.

I just think they are trying to use this hearing to create talking points and sound bites for the next for the next election and the midterm.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Does it concern you about the most recent director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that she got involved in domestic politics?

There is a lot of evidence that you and I have talked about over the years that foreign adversaries have tried to influence elections.

But the Senate Intelligence Committee, the intelligence community itself has always said that there's no evidence that any foreign actors manipulated any votes.

Does it concern you if the director of national intelligence is involved in domestic politics?

FRED FLEITZ: Well, there's pretty substantial intelligence that many nations, China, Iran, and Russia, have tried to influence the outcome of our elections.

Did it make a difference in the outcome?

Well, that's something we can debate and look at the information.

I think that our intelligence community has a responsibility to make sure that, if there are hostile powers trying to affect the outcome of our elections, especially presidential elections, they need to do that.

NICK SCHIFRIN: All right, let's zoom out.

Let's zoom out.

Clayton and Chairman Cotton of Arkansas talked about the need to cut the size of the staff of the director of national intelligence, as you mentioned before.

Why do you think that's important?

FRED FLEITZ: I like the way Cotton began this debate.

He said that the ODNI, the Office of Director of National Intelligence, is a wasteful and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

He would like to see it numbered in the teens, if not the hundreds.

Right now, there are thousands of bureaucrats working in this bureaucracy.

I was with the CIA for 19 years.

I really don't know what this bureaucracy does.

When I was on the House Intelligence Committee, I just noticed they sent in tons of senior officials, so many of which, when we had a witness table, we couldn't fit all the ODNI and other intelligence community officials.

So many officials, so many cooks stirring the soup makes it very difficult to get intelligence out quickly to the president when he needs it.

We need to have a streamlined and effective U.S.

intelligence community.

The ODNI, instead of being a small coordinating office to make sure the intelligence agencies share information -- that's what the 9/11 Commission wanted -- it now produces intelligence.

It has the National Intelligence Council.

It has issue managers who do the same thing on regional issues and on functional issues.

I think Senator Cotton is exactly right.

He has a very good bill on how to pare down the ODNI.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And do you think the president will support Clayton being a strong director of national intelligence, even as the structures will reduce in size, at the very least?

FRED FLEITZ: I think Clayton will get similar directions from the president that Pulte did, to basically right-size this organization, so intelligence is lean and mean and gets the president what he needs quickly and without political influence.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Fred Fleitz, thank you very much.

FRED FLEITZ: Good to be here.