Hillary Clinton June 7

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton greets supporters as she arrives to speak during a presidential primary election night rally, Tuesday, June 7, 2016, in New York.

(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

By Andrew Lewis

Earlier this week, FBI Director James Comey delivered the bureau's official recommendation that charges not be brought against Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that she and her staff mishandled classified information.

Andrew Lewis (PennLive file)

This has triggered outrage from Clinton detractors, many of whom have taken to television, radio and social media to blast the former secretary for getting away with unethical behavior, and to question why she seems to be above the law.

What nobody seems to be talking about is that the Clinton email scandal has serious national security implications, and that such behavior from a president could jeopardize the nation. Allow me to explain.

As a former Army counterintelligence agent, I've spent years of my life protecting our strategic national security by working diligently to ensure our classified information did not fall into the wrong hands.

From my first days at the Counterintelligence Special Agent Course at Fort Huachuca, I was constantly reminded by instructors that foreign intelligence services and adversarial agents work tirelessly to collect our protected national defense information.

And we must be equally diligent in preventing this information from falling into their hands.

When classified information is compromised, it not only weakens our strategic national security advantages over foreign powers, but it can immediately jeopardize the lives of our military members and covert operatives around the globe as well.

In order to safeguard national defense information - keeping it from falling into the wrong hands - a series of procedures have been put into place: First, nobody can receive access to classified information unless he or she receives the appropriate clearance.

Clearances are only given after intense and thorough vetting, to ensure the individual can be trusted to protect and safeguard classified information.

Second, classified information must be handled, stored, and transmitted according to a series of strict protocols. This is how seriously our government takes the threat of unauthorized disclosure or compromise of our national defense information.

From Comey's statement, we learned that eight of Clinton's email chains contained Top Secret information; 36 email chains contained Secret information, and eight others contained Confidential information.

You are probably wondering what each classification level signifies, so consider the definitions contained in Executive Order 13526, issued by President Barack Obama.

The order explains that any information that could "reasonably be expected to cause damage to the national security" if compromised, should be classified Confidential.

Any information that could "reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security" if compromised, should be classified Secret.

Finally, any information that "reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security" if compromised, should be classified Top Secret.

Think about that for a moment: if Top Secret information is compromised, the U.S. government believes that such compromise could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.

Yet, Clinton and her staff chose to ignore security protocols and transmit this information using an unsecured email server.

This indicates either a stunning naivete regarding matters of national security, or worse, a willful disregard for safeguarding our most protected information.

In either case, I believe these violations disqualify Clinton from serving as President.

You may wonder why I would say that, but consider this: If any military service member or federal employee chose to transmit classified information using an unsecured device for the sake of convenience (or any reason), their clearance would be permanently revoked.

As a former counterintelligence agent, I can assure you unequivocally that based on Hillary Clinton's actions, she would be ineligible for a security clearance.

It therefore makes no sense that she is a leading contender for the presidency - a position that requires access to our nation's most closely guarded military secrets.

A president serves three basic roles in order to fulfill his or her constitutional duties - Chief Executive (domestic matters), Commander in Chief (military matters) and Head of State (foreign matters).

It is inconceivable that we would elect a Commander-in-Chief/Head of State who does not understand the national security implications of compromising classified information.

We cannot entrust this information to someone who does not understand its significance - or worse does not care - and we cannot elect a president who would choose convenience over the security of the nation.

Andrew Lewis is a Harrisburg businessman and former Army Counterintelligence Agent. He served as the Special Agent in Charge of a counterintelligence team in Korea, and as the Chief of Information Security at a military agency in Washington, DC.