If said files were left on a table in a public place - not by accident, but as a standard way of doing busines - then, yes Rublicans and everyone else should have no problem with people who read the stuff. If someone has a problem with such access they should put the files is a place that is secure from public access.
Let me ask you this...
Assume there was a certain well know and sometimes controversial female Freeper who has pictures on her Freeper home page. Assume that by going to the URL of that picture you could branch out and look at the entire web site with an ordinary browser and not using any hacking techniques. Would it be wrong to go exploring though this public access to a published web site and learn all sorts of steamy details about that Freeper. If I gave you the name of the Freeper and the URL, would you go take a look?