FBI Director Officially Goes After Nancy Guthrie Sheriff for Ignoring Them for the 1st Crucial Days as Savannah’s Mom Goes 100 Days Missing
It’s been nearly 100 days since Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, disappeared. Leads in the case remain scarce, and police are no closer to determining what happened to her.
Many people are frustrated with the lack of progress in Guthrie’s case, including FBI director Kash Patel. During the May 5 episode of the Hanging Out with Sean Hannity podcast, Patel openly criticized Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos and Arizona law enforcement over how they’ve handled Guthrie’s abduction, also accusing them of ignoring the FBI’s offer to assist in the investigation.
“The first 48 hours of anyone’s disappearance are the most critical,” Patel told host Sean Hannity. “And here’s how these cases work. It is a state matter, it’s a state and local law enforcement matter.”
He continued, “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. And when we were finally let in … we went in and got the Ring doorbell [footage].”
“And we said, ‘Hey, is anyone talking to Google?'” Patel added. “I called the leadership at Google… ‘Can we go in to 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.”
Patel also took issue with Sheriff Nanos sending DNA evidence to a private lab in Florida instead of routing it to the FBI’s forensic facility in Quantico, Va.
“We were saying, ‘We’ll process it.’ I launched hundreds of agents and intel staff to Phoenix and Tuson just for this case, just to be on standby,” he said on the podcast. “And we said ‘We’ll take the DNA’ … We have Quantico, best lab in the world.”
Patel even claimed he had a “fixed wing aircraft on the ground ready to move it immediately through the night,” but the sheriff’s office chose to send the samples to Florida instead.
Shortly after the podcast episode aired, Sheriff Nanos released a statement via social media saying he was “aware” of Patel’s remarks before disputing them.
“Sheriff Nanos responded to the scene the night of the incident, providing immediate local leadership and oversight,” he explained. “A member of the FBI Task Force was also notified and present at the 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.”
He added that the local authorities “remain committed to a thorough, coordinated and fact-based investigation and will continue working closely with our federal partners as the process moves forward.”
