"It was wrongdoing by calculation and stealth, not by inadvertence or mistake, and we know it was intentional, repeated, longstanding and . . . systematic and malicious," Leahy said. "It was carried out surreptitiously, because those who did it knew it was wrong."

According to Pickle's report, Lundell learned how to access the files by watching a systems administrator work on his computer. Miranda guided Lundell in his accessing endeavors, the report said. In addition, the probe found "a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence implicating him," the report said.

But my disgust is ironically with the Democrats, whose positions I generally support, and not the Republicans. Politics should not blind us from the facts. The facts, as reported and admitted so far, are these: One young Senate staffer discovered that documents of the opposing party were freely available on his desktop from the one file server that both parties shared. He let a few of his colleagues know. Independently, yet another staffer, the Republican technology consultant, also discovered that the shared server was wide open and he informed the Democrat system administrator that each party's documents were vulnerable to the other. The Democrats were in the majority so the Democrat systems administrator had control over the shared server and the security protocols. But it appears he did nothing. It was only months later, after documents were leaked to the press, when the Republicans regained control, that the security problems were fixed.