NBC: FBI Director Kash Patel criticized authorities in Arizona for their handling of the Nancy Guthrie case, telling Sean Hannity on a podcast that the sheriff’s office investigating her possible abduction sidelined the agency for days.
“What we, the FBI, do is say, ‘Hey, we’re here to help,’” Patel told Hannity on an episode of “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” released Tuesday. “What do you need? What can we do? And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation.”
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos disputed those comments, saying in a statement Tuesday night that when he responded to the scene the night Guthrie disappeared, a member of the FBI Task Force had been notified and was present, working alongside local law enforcement.
“The FBI was promptly notified by both our department and the Guthrie family,” Nanos said. He added that his department will continue working with the FBI and remains committed to a “thorough, coordinated, and fact-based investigation.”
Guthrie, the mother of “TODAY” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing Feb. 1 from her home in the Tucson area. Nanos has said investigators believe she was targeted. No suspects or persons of interest have been publicly named.
Patel also criticized the sheriff’s department’s handling of physical evidence. Blood found on her porch matched Guthrie’s DNA, but mixed, partial samples found in her home have proven more difficult to analyze.
The sheriff’s office turned to genetic genealogy to examine those samples, Nanos has said, but the lab analyzing them has reported what he described as “challenges.”
Patel told Hannity: “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.”
“And we didn’t get a chance to do that,” he added. “I understand everybody’s frustration.”
Nanos said Tuesday that evidence decisions made on the scene were “based on operational needs.” He said the lab the sheriff’s department uses and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, have worked closely “and continue to collaborate in the analysis of evidence.”
Patel praised the FBI for uncovering the most significant lead in the case — images from Guthrie’s doorbell camera that captured an armed, masked man outside her home the morning she disappeared.
Guthrie did not have a subscription for the Google Nest camera that would have saved the video, and Patel has said the FBI recovered it from “residual data on backend systems.”
Patel released the images Feb. 10.
“That’s why you have that image,” he told Hannity. “Because the FBI worked with Google to put that image out.”
