Police slam FBI director Kash Patel's claims on Nancy Guthrie case in fierce reply
William Morgan
Featured Image Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
FBI Director Kash Patel has been slapped with a firm rebuke after attempting to pass the buck for the failed search operation to locate missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie.
The mom of the Today co-host Savannah Guthrie has now been missing for over three months, despite the large amount of attention her case has received from the public. Something Patel has appeared to blame on the local police force.
During an appearance on Fox's 'Hang Out with Sean Hannity' podcast, Patel made the once-taboo decision to comment on an active case by claiming that the Pima County Sheriff's office had taken four days to involve the FBI in their investigation.
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."
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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.”
Patel also complained that the agency were not given immediate access to blood and DNA samples at 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.
But the local sheriff's office have firmly pushed back on Patel's claims, saying that they were 'aware' of the FBI Director's podcast appearance, providing counterclaims about the agency's involvement while defending their actions in the aftermath of the octogenarian's 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."
With the head of federal law enforcement criticizing their evidence collection and referral in the wake of Nancy's disappearance, the local force 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."
But while this back-and-forth blame game between federal and local law enforcement continues over this high-profile case, 84-year-old Nancy remains missing following her February 1 disappearance.