FBI Director Kash Patel Criticizes Pima County Officials in Nancy Guthrie Case

FBI Director Kash Patel criticized local officials over their handling of the Nancy Guthrie disappearance case. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said some of Patel's comments were inaccurate.

Guthrie, mother of Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie, vanished more than three months ago from her Tucson, Arizona, home. She was last seen on Jan. 31 and reported missing on Feb. 1 after a friend called the family to say she had not shown up at church.

In a Tuesday podcast interview with Sean Hannity, Patel said the Pima County Sheriff's Department waited too long to involve the FBI.

"For four days we were kept out of the investigation," Patel claimed.

Sheriff Nanos disputed that account. The sheriff's department posted a statement from Nanos on X saying a member of the FBI task force was on the scene the night Guthrie was first reported missing.

"While the FBI director was not on scene, coordination with the bureau began without delay," the statement said.

Two days later, the Pima County Sheriff's Department held a news conference with the FBI.

"When we were finally let in, Sean, look what we did," Patel said on the podcast. "We went in and got the ... doorbell [video] and we said, 'Hey, is anyone talking to Google?'"

Patel said he spoke with Google leadership and within days received images of a suspect, described as a man of average build about 5-foot-9 or 5-foot-10, outside Guthrie's home.

The man wore a face mask, gloves and a black Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack in footage from Guthrie's doorbell camera, the FBI said.

Patel also faulted local officials for not using the FBI's Quantico lab to analyze DNA evidence.

"I had a fixed-wing aircraft on the ground ready to move it immediately through the night," Patel said. "And they say we're sending it to Florida."

In his X post, Nanos wrote that the department's decisions on 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," Nanos said in his statement.