FBI Director Kash Patel publicly called out the Pima County Sheriff’s Department over its handling of the Nancy Guthrie disappearance case, claiming that it was initially kept out of the investigation for four days.
Patel tore into the Sheriff Department during his appearance on the Hang Out with Sean Hannity podcast on Tuesday, May 5. He said that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department did not involve the FBI in the investigation for four days, emphasizing the importance of time in such cases.
“What we, the FBI, do is say, ‘Hey, we’re here to help. What do you need? What can we do?” the Director said, adding, “And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation.”
Patel stated that the FBI was prepared to act quickly, but the Sheriff’s Department opted to send DNA evidence to a private lab in Florida, instead of sending it to the bureau’s lab in Quantico.
🚨🔥 FBI Director Kash Patel told Sean Hannity on his podcast that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department blocked the FBI for four days after Nancy Guthrie went missing.
He said the FBI had planes on standby, ready to fly the DNA to their top lab in Quantico, but the sheriff’s… pic.twitter.com/ykPpgnxBRP
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) May 5, 2026
“I had a fixed-wing aircraft on the ground ready to move it immediately through the night,” Patel told Hannity. “And they said, ‘we’re sending it to Florida,’ and then, I don’t know, 60 days. They have jurisdiction, so it’s their call.”
Patel explained that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department’s decision to send the DNA evidence to Florida cost them valuable time. He said it slowed the chance of a faster FBI investigation and analysis.
“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,” Patel said. “So I understand everybody’s frustrations on that,” Patel said.
“The first 48 hours of anyone’s disappearance are the most critical,” the FBI director added.
New images in the search for Nancy Guthrie:
Over the last eight days, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff’s Department have been working closely with our private sector partners to continue to recover any images or video footage from Nancy Guthrie’s home that may have been lost,… pic.twitter.com/z5WLgPtZpT— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) February 10, 2026
Patel said that once the FBI got involved, they worked with Google to recover cache data from a doorbell camera system. He called it a key piece of evidence that might have otherwise been lost.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos disputed Kash Patel’s claims. In his statement posted to X, Nanos claimed that the Florida laboratory and the FBI laboratory worked closely to analyze the evidence.
Statement from Sheriff Chris Nanos: pic.twitter.com/slujYQbncO
— Pima County Sheriff's Department (@PimaSheriff) May 5, 2026
“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,” Sheriff Nanos said in a statement following Patel’s podcast interview.
Nanos also claimed that his department did not delay in coordinating with the FBI. “A member of the FBI Task Force was also notified and present at that scene working alongside our personnel,” he said.
“The FBI was promptly notified by both our department and the Guthrie family,” Nanos’ statement added. “While the FBI Director was not on scene, coordination with the Bureau began without delay.”
Nancy Guthrie has been missing from her Tucson, Arizona, home since Feb. 1, 2026 — the 84-year-old mother of the Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie was last seen the day before. Although investigating officials have followed multiple leads, they have yet to name suspects or make arrests.
The Guthrie family has offered a reward of $1 million for any information that might help in the return of Nancy. The FBI has also offered a reward of $100,000.
