The Real F.B.I. Election Culprit. Hint: It’s not Peter Strzok.

In his testimony before two House committees on Thursday, the F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok testified that he could have altered the 2016 election — but didn’t. The information about Russian election interference, he said, “had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.”

In hours of always hostile and sometimes even rude questioning, the Republican members of the committees never proved otherwise. The hearing was the latest effort by House Republicans to find any hint that there’s a “deep state” conspiracy against President Trump.

Once again, they came up with nothing.

As Mr. Horowitz told Capitol Hill last month, his investigation didn’t try to dive into who at the F.B.I. New York field office was driving the leaks that ultimately pushed some of the regrettable decisions that Mr. Horowitz excoriated in that very report.

In the Horowitz report, Loretta Lynch, the former attorney general, recalled a conversation with James Comey in which he said, “it’s clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.” F.B.I. agents in that office had a demonstrated propensity for leaks and arguably forced the bureau’s leadership’s hand in the final weeks of the election.

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