FBI Director Kash Patel revealed that his bureau was kept out of the Nancy Guthrie investigation for several days.
At a time when every moment mattered, Patel claims that the FBI was locked out of information related to Guthrie’s disappearance for four days before they were eventually allowed to assist in the investigation
“One thing I want to ask you is about, in the Nancy Guthrie case, I got frustrated because I knew from my sources they were trying to keep you guys out,” Hannity opened.
“They did,” Patel confirmed.
“They did keep you out? Because time matters in an investigation,” Hannity noted.
“The first 48 hours of 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?’ And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation,” Patel revealed. “And when we were finally let in, Sean, look what we did. We went in and got the Ring doorbell and we said, ‘Hey, is anyone talking to Google?’ 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. “Another thing we asked to do-”
“You guys got that tape, which was the biggest breakthrough during that case,” Hannity added.
“We could have gotten it days before. We could have also maybe gotten more data,” the director said.
“Why wouldn’t they want your help? Why did they send the DNA to a lab in Florida, not Quantico?” Hannity pressed.
“That’s the other thing that you hit on, right? Again, we were saying we’ll process it. I launched hundreds of agents and intel staff to Phoenix in Tucson, just for this case, just to be on stand by, just to do the canvasing. And we 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. We have Quantico, best lab in the world. I had a fixed wing aircraft on the ground, ready to move it immediately through the night,” Patel explained.
“And they said no?” a baffled host questioned.
“And they said we’re sending it to Florida, and then I don’t know. They have jurisdiction, so it’s their call,” Patel confirmed.
“Bad call,” Hannity scoffed.
“Well, that’s for the American public to decide. 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 on that,” Patel said.
