Kash Patel Drops Bombshell in Savannah Guthrie’s Missing Mom Nightmare

FBI Chief Kash Patel is sounding the alarm over what he says was a stunning delay by local law enforcement in the search for missing Arizona woman Nancy Guthrie.

Patel, 46, said the FBI offered to help immediately after Guthrie vanished, but claims the Pima County Sheriff’s Office kept federal agents on the outside for four critical days.

“From day one, the FBI offered up our assistance because it was a state and local matter,” Patel said.

He explained that the FBI was not originally the lead agency because the case was not being handled as a federal investigation.

“We showed up immediately and offered our assistance,” Patel said. “We were not let in for four days. And that’s their choice.”

The comment has fueled fresh questions about whether precious time was lost in a disappearance that has already left Guthrie’s family desperate for answers.

Patel, who has become a major law enforcement figure under the Trump administration, said the FBI has continued to offer help despite the rocky start. He said he even visited the bureau’s Tucson office as the case dragged on.

“We offered our assistance to go test the DNA,” Patel told NewsNation. “And it’s up to them. They chose to use a private laboratory.”

The remarks appear to put Patel directly at odds with Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who has already faced criticism over his department’s handling of evidence in the case.

Back in February, Nanos came under fire over a pair of gloves found near Guthrie’s home. He later denied accusations that his department had withheld evidence from the FBI, insisting the claim was “not even close to the truth.”

According to Nanos, the FBI originally wanted to test only one or two gloves found closest to the suspected crime scene, roughly a mile to a mile and a half away. But Nanos said he wanted all the gloves tested together.

“I said, ‘No, why do that? Let’s just send them all to where all the DNA exist, all the profiles and the markers exist,’” Nanos said. “They agreed, makes sense.”

Still, Patel’s latest comments have only deepened concerns about the early days of the investigation.

Nancy Guthrie was last seen after being dropped off at home by her daughter, Annie Guthrie, and son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni. The next morning, she failed to appear for a streaming church service, prompting a friend to alert the family.

Since then, the case has turned into a nightmare with few major breakthroughs.

Her daughter, Today co-host Savannah Guthrie, has made repeated public pleas for information. The family has also offered a six-figure reward, hoping someone with knowledge of Nancy’s disappearance would come forward.

So far, the money has not produced the answers the family is praying for.

That silence has left investigators, experts, and online sleuths wondering whether the person responsible may not be motivated by cash at all.

Former police officer Charles Brewer raised that possibility in a May 25 video titled Nancy Guthrie Case: We May Have Been Looking At The Wrong Person.

Brewer suggested that the earlier ransom communication may not have been as meaningful as some believed, especially because it did not appear to produce results.

“If somebody kidnaps for money, money usually becomes the priority,” Brewer said. “But here, the behavior feels chaotic, disconnected, even emotionally driven, or possibly connected to something far more personal than the public originally believed.”

Brewer floated the possibility that the suspect could be someone closer to Guthrie’s personal circle, though not necessarily a direct family member.

“Maybe somebody connected to them — like a friend, an associate, maybe a business relationship, or what about a debt?” he said.

He added that after more than 100 days with so few answers, the case still feels deeply unsettled.

“A dangerous person orbiting somewhere close to this family that nobody fully recognized at the time,” Brewer said. “Because after more than 100 days, something still feels off. Something still feels untouched.”

Now, with Patel openly saying the FBI was delayed from helping in the crucial first days, the case is under even more scrutiny.

For Nancy Guthrie’s family, the political finger-pointing and law enforcement tensions matter far less than one urgent question: where is Nancy?