FBI Director Kash Patel has faced sharp criticism after appearing to shift responsibility for the unsuccessful effort to find missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie.
The mother of Today co-host Savannah Guthrie has been missing for more than three months, despite widespread public attention. Patel has suggested that shortcomings in the response stemmed from the local police agency.
Speaking on Fox’s ‘Hang Out with Sean Hannity’ podcast, Patel weighed in on the ongoing investigation, alleging that the Pima County Sheriff’s Office waited four days before bringing the FBI into the case.
Patel claimed on the Trump-friendly podcast: “What we, the FBI, do is say, ‘Hey, we’re here to help. What do you need? What can we do?’ And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation.”
Patel said: “I called the leadership at Google, and I said, ‘Look, we know that there was not [a] subscription service to capture all of the data that would have been captured had there been a subscription service.
“But can we go into the cache? Can we go into the data before it’s deleted and see what we can find?’ That’s why you have that image, because the FBI worked with Google to put that image out.”
He also argued that the FBI did not promptly receive access to blood and DNA evidence from the property. “We would have analyzed it within days and maybe gotten better information or more information. Our lab’s just better than any other private lab out there,” he claimed.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Office later rejected Patel’s version of events, saying officials were aware of his podcast comments. The department outlined its own account of when federal partners were contacted and defended how the initial response was handled after the disappearance.
They said in a statement: “Sheriff Nanos responded to the scene the night of the incident, providing immediate local leadership and oversight. A member of the FBI Task Force was also notified and present at that scene working alongside our personnel.
“The FBI was promptly notified by both our department and the Guthrie family. While the FBI Director was not on scene, coordination with the Bureau began without delay.”
In response to criticism about evidence handling and referrals, the sheriff’s office added: “Decisions regarding evidence processing were made on scene based on operational needs.
“The laboratory utilized by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico have worked in close partnership from the outset and continue to collaborate in the analysis of evidence.”
As federal and local officials continue to dispute elements of the response in this high-profile case, Nancy remains missing since she vanished on February 1.