GOPer Steve Schmidt blisters Comey: No director 'has done more damage' to FBI's reputation

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt absolutely tore into FBI Director James Comey on Friday, and told MSNBC that no director in recent memory has done as much to harm its reputation as an institution.

During his interview, Schmidt ripped Comey as an egomaniac who has put his own public image ahead of doing what's right for both the FBI and the country.

"Comey put himself in a box because nothing has higher primacy in the mind of James Comey than his own image," said Schmidt. "Because of that, he's brought profound, profound discreditation upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He put his image ahead of the institution."

Schmidt then noted that trust in nearly all American institutions has collapsed over the past two decades, and that Comey's handling of the latest Clinton email revelations will only lower that trust even further.

"In an era where trust has completely collapsed in very nearly every institution of the United States, really with the exception of the U.S. military and a couple others, let's now take the FBI and add it to the list of politicized discredited institutions," Schmidt fumed. "There has never been a director in the modern age who has done more damage to the reputation of this institution putting it into the center of a political campaign like James Comey did. And he did it because of ego."

Watch the whole interview below.