Sheriff Chris Nanos has responded after FBI Director Kash Patel leveled allegations against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department amid the Nancy Guthrie probe. Patel said the FBI was “kept out of the investigation,” and that his team had hundreds of agents, resources, and a plane ready in Tucson to rush DNA from Nancy’s home to Quantico for fast analysis, but Nanos held them off and chose a private Florida lab instead.
Nanos has denied the claims, saying the FBI has been involved from day one.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department shared Nanos’ statement on X. “Sheriff Nanos responded to the scene of the incident, providing immediate local leadership and insight,” the statement reads. “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.”
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The statement adds, “Decisions regarding evidence 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.”
“We remain committed to a thorough, coordinated and fact-based investigation and will continue working closely with our federal partners as the process moves forward,” it concludes.
What did Kash Patel say?
On the Tuesday, May 5 episode of Hang Out With Sean Hannity, Patel sat down with Hannity and discussed the case.
“In the Nancy Guthrie case, I got frustrated,” Hannity said at one point. “Because I knew from my sources they were trying to keep you guys out.”
“They did,” Patel confirmed. “The first 48 hours in anyone’s disappearance are the most critical. And here’s how these cases work: It is a state matter. It’s a state and local law enforcement matter. What we, the FBI, do is say, ‘Hey, we’re here to help. What do you need? What can we do?’”
He added, “And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation. And when we were finally let in, Sean, look what we did. We went in and got the Ring doorbell.”
Patel claimed that he called the leadership at Google to tell them that Nancy did not have a subscription service to capture all of the video data. He asked about going into the cached data before it was deleted.
“That’s why you have that image,” Patel noted, referencing stills and video footage of the ‘Porch Guy’. “Because the FBI worked with Google to put that image out.”
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“We could have gotten that days before. We could have also maybe gotten more data had we been let in earlier,” he added.
Patel then said that even after the bureau offered to process the DNA evidence in Nancy’s case, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department first sent it to a lab in Florida for processing instead.
“I launched hundreds of agents and intel staff to Phoenix and Tucson just for this case, just to be on standby, just to do the canvassing,” Patel said. “And I said, ‘We’ll take the DNA.’ And again, it’s a state and local matter, so it’s their call on where to send the DNA.
Hannity said it was a “bad call,” and Patel replied, “Well, that’s for the American public to decide.”
He added, “And what we can do is continue to offer support. 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, so I understand everybody’s frustrations.”
