Kash Patel launched hundreds of FBI agents to Tucson the moment Nancy Guthrie vanished.
They were turned away.
Now the FBI director just told the country what the sheriff did next — and it cost Nancy Guthrie time she didn't have.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos Kept the FBI Out for Four Days
FBI Director Kash Patel described what happened when his agents arrived at the Pima County Sheriff's Department ready to work the most critical window of a kidnapping investigation of Nancy Guthrie.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos kept them out for four full days.
"For four days we were kept out of the investigation," Patel told Fox News host Sean Hannity, making clear that the FBI had launched hundreds of agents and intelligence staff to Phoenix and Tucson specifically for this case — agents who sat on standby while the sheriff ran his own show.
When evidence was finally recovered from Nancy Guthrie's Catalina Foothills home, Patel offered federal firepower on the spot.
A plane was staged and ready to rush the evidence directly to Quantico — the FBI's national crime laboratory in Virginia, the best forensic facility in the country.
Nanos shipped it to a private lab in Florida instead.
"We would have analyzed it within days and maybe gotten better information or more information," Patel said. "Our labs are just better than any other private lab out there and we didn't get a chance to do that."
What the FBI Found the Moment Nanos Finally Let Them In
The first 48 hours of a kidnapping investigation determine whether the case gets solved or goes cold.
Law enforcement has been consistent on this for decades — and Patel said it explicitly.
"The first 48 hours of anyone's disappearance are the most critical."
Once the FBI was finally let in, they delivered the biggest break in the case within days — working with Google to recover cached doorbell footage showing a masked man outside Guthrie's home on the night she was taken.
Patel said that footage could have surfaced days earlier.
Three months after Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her Tucson home, there are still no suspects, no arrests, and no named motive.
The 84-year-old mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie has been missing since February 1st.
Sheriff Nanos Recall Effort and the Record He Hid for 40 Years
Patel's public rebuke is the latest and most serious accusation against Chris Nanos.
His own deputies — 300 of them — voted unanimously no confidence and demanded he resign.
Not one voted to keep him.
A whistleblower told NewsNation in April that the supervisor Nanos installed to lead the Guthrie homicide unit had never worked a homicide in his life.
That same insider said investigators treated the disappearance as a search and rescue mission for days — not a kidnapping — burning through the critical early hours chasing the wrong theory.
Nanos also cleared Guthrie's home as a crime scene too quickly.
He never deployed a search plane or cadaver dogs.
And before any of that: Nanos had hidden a disciplinary record from his time at the El Paso Police Department — suspensions for excessive force, insubordination, and off-duty gambling, ending with him resigning before he could be fired.
He told investigators under oath he had never been suspended.
But he was suspended eight times.
A recall campaign is now circulating. The Board of Supervisors has moved to compel Nanos to answer questions under oath. County leadership described his career as one that "seems to be based on fraud."
The Pima County Sheriff's Department disputed Patel's account, saying Nanos began coordinating with the FBI the night Nancy disappeared and that both laboratories have collaborated throughout the investigation.
This Is What Happens When the Wrong Person Runs the Show
Patel didn't have to go public.
The FBI director acknowledged that local jurisdiction controls these decisions — Nanos had every legal right to send that evidence wherever he chose.
He went public anyway.
A grandmother has been missing for months. The FBI director staged a plane to rush her evidence to Quantico — the best lab in the world — and the man running the investigation shipped it to a private contractor in Florida instead.
Democrats in Pima County elected Chris Nanos.
They reelected him in 2024 by fewer than 500 votes.
Cronies over competence, friends over qualifications — that's the machine that put Nanos in charge of finding Nancy Guthrie.
The $1.1 million combined reward from the Guthrie family and the FBI is still unclaimed.
Savannah Guthrie built her career telling you the institutions are fine.
Her mother has been missing for 94 days because they're not.
Sources:
- Anna Young, "FBI Director Kash Patel calls out Nancy Guthrie sheriff over handling of DNA: 'We would have analyzed it within days,'" New York Post, May 5, 2026.
- Staff, "Nancy Guthrie case sparks clash as FBI Director Kash Patel rips sheriff," Fox News, May 5, 2026.
- Brian Entin, "Nancy Guthrie investigators initially believed she wandered off, insider tells NewsNation," NewsNation, April 2, 2026.
- Staff, "Whistleblower: Nancy Guthrie investigation supervisor never worked homicide," Fox 10 Phoenix, April 3, 2026.
- Quentin S. Agnello, "Pima County residents push to recall Sheriff Chris Nanos," Tucson Spotlight, March 31, 2026.
- Staff, "Pima County supervisors move to compel sworn reports from Sheriff Nanos amid 'fraud' allegations," AZPM, March 24, 2026.
