During a July 5 news briefing, FBI Director James Comey outlined the findings from his investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE’s use of her home-brew, private email server. The factual results were damning while his legal conclusion wholly unexplainable.

He described Secretary Clinton and other State Department officials’ handling of our nation’s top secrets as “extremely careless.” According to Director Comey, Clinton sent and received emails containing classified information including some that were Top Secret, and part of the Special Access Program – our nation’s most closely guarded secrets. To make matters worse, Clinton regularly used her personal email overseas, including, as Director Comey put it, “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.” It would be extremely naïve to conclude anything other than the following: America’s most vital secrets are in the hands of our adversaries because Secretary Clinton intentionally avoided using official government communication systems.

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Inexplicably, Comey did not recommend criminal charges in this case.

The absence of a criminal referral was based, as best I can understand, on the absence of "intent to violate laws governing the handling of classified information." But Director Comey's own words belie this and the law does not require it. Secretary Clinton was warned repeatedly about her duty to secure classified information and that her unsecure server did not meet that standard. Surely she intended, at the very least, to ignore well-known rules and procedures for securing this information. Moreover, the law is clear. Intent to harm America is not required to make the mishandling of information criminal -- it simply requires that the actor was grossly negligent. How one can be "extremely careless," but not be "grossly negligent" escapes me completely.

The definition of Top Secret is that if released it would cause “exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.” I’ve read all of the 22 Top Secret emails that Clinton made available to any internet hacker, including our enemies. While I can’t disclose the content of these emails—because that would cause the FBI to knock on my door—I can assure the American people that the emails on her server places our nation and our fighting men and women at greater risk.

If you or I were accused of being “extremely careless” with our nation’s most sensitive secrets, we would likely be experiencing a harsh federal response. In fact, I would demand that be the case. Indeed there are many in government who have been punished for far less egregious failure to properly protect America’s secrets. I served alongside soldiers who have a single incident of accidental disclosure of much lower level secrets who lost their entire careers over that incident and were subject to court martial or worse. I know those soldiers did not have any intent to disclose the information and certainly not to harm America.

While the FBI Director has decided to not recommend charges, that should not stop Congress from doing what we must to hold our government leaders accountable for maintaining our nation’s secrets.

That means that Secretary Clinton should be denied access to classified information. Congress must also hold the State Department accountable for fixing the culture of lax handling of classified information. All officials who treated classified information with such extreme carelessness should have their security clearances revoked.

The rule of law was done great damage by Secretary Clinton’s behavior and Director Comey’s decision. All citizens should expect equal treatment under that law and, here, this did not happen.