Much like you don't have to actually steal the TV to be charged with possession of stolen goods Hillary! still violated the law 40 ways from Sunday.

That's because there is a separate criminal statute making it an offense to be in possession of stolen goods. If you didn't actually steal the TV, you can't be charged under the statute that makes it a crime to steal a TV. You can only be charged if there's another statute that makes what you're doing a crime.

This is not just an "agree to disagree" point. Clinton didn't violate the statute you were claiming she violated, because that crime requires the person to have actually removed the classified material from its initial location - not just to possess it in an unauthorized location. There are other criminal statutes that govern the unauthorized retention of classified information, but in order to violate those you have to have refused to return that material upon request. Trump did that, but Clinton and Biden did not.

Here's merely one example of how seriously the feds take these sorts of things.

Saucier was charged with a different provision of the law - 18 USC 793, which prohibits (among other things) taking photographs of military equipment for your own personal purposes.

justsecurity.org - Saucier govt sent mem

In criminal law, there's no "these sorts of things." To charge someone with a crime, you need to have evidence that each of the specific elements of that crime have been met. You can't walk into court and claim that the defendant's behavior involved "the sorts of things" that other people have been convicted of. You have to identify the statute, and provide evidence that each and every element of the statutory crime has been met.

The reason Saucier was charged and Clinton wasn't is because Saucier actually committed a violation of a criminal statute, and Clinton didn't. Both mishandled classified information. But Saucier mishandled classified information in a way that constituted a federal crime as set forth in 18 USC 793....and Clinton did not.