Nancy Guthrie Case: Todd Blanche Says 'We Don't Like Interagency Squabbles' Amid FBI Exclusion Furore

Todd Blanche said this week that the Nancy Guthrie case remains a joint effort between federal and local authorities in Arizona, pushing back on reports of a breakdown between the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department over the investigation into Guthrie's disappearance.

Speaking on Bradley on the Border, the attorney general insisted the Bureau had worked closely with local law enforcement from the start, even as a very public dispute over access, evidence and those all important first days refused to go away.

Nancy Guthrie Case Puts Federal And Local Accounts At Odds

Appearing on Bradley on the Border with NewsNation's Ali Bradley, Blanche — described in the segment as a Donald Trump‑appointed attorney general — was pressed on reports of a breakdown between the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department over 'critical' DNA evidence.

Bradley asked how the Department of Justice was 'resolving the apparent breakdown in coordination between the FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department regarding the handling of the "critical" DNA evidence'. Blanche pushed back firmly.

He said the FBI 'has worked closely since the day that this happened with the local law enforcement', before acknowledging: 'There's been reports of friction. I've seen those reports. We are here to help.'

He went further, stressing that 'President Trump authorised and directed us to do everything we can to help in that investigation.'

In Blanche's telling, the Guthrie case remains at its core 'a local investigation because of the nature of this type of potential crime', but he insisted the Bureau 'remains able to help as much as we can.'

Then came the line that has stuck: 'We don't like interagency squabbles. Nobody likes that. That doesn't help the investigation. But we are in a complete cooperative mode with the local law enforcement.'

Blanche argued that 'any investigation like this should be done by a coordinated approach' and that agencies should be 'working together to solve the crime.'

Kash Patel Claims FBI Was 'Kept Out' Of Early Guthrie Investigation

Blanche's defensive tone did not come out of nowhere. His comments landed days after FBI Director Kash Patel publicly accused the local sheriff of blocking federal agents during the most crucial early window of the Guthrie probe — an allegation Sheriff Chris Nanos has rejected.

Patel told Sean Hannity on his Fox News podcast that 'for four days, we were kept out of the investigation.' He argued that the first 48 hours in a missing person case are typically decisive, and that delaying full FBI involvement risked losing opportunities that might never come back.

The director was particularly scathing about a decision to send key DNA evidence from the crime scene to a private laboratory in Florida rather than the FBI's own facility at Quantico, Virginia. 'It's their call on where to send the DNA; we have Quantico, the best lab in the world, I had a fixed‑wing aircraft on the ground ready to move it immediately,' Patel said. 'They said we're sending it to Florida.'

According to Patel, the Bureau 'would have analysed it within days and maybe gotten better information or more information', insisting that 'our lab's just better than any other private lab out there and we didn't get a chance to do that.' Only later, he noted, was it revealed that the DNA — believed to be a hair sample — was eventually sent on to Quantico for analysis.

Competing Accounts From FBI And Sheriff

On the other side of this rift, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has painted a very different picture of cooperation. His office has stated that FBI task force members were on scene 'within hours', that federal authorities were notified immediately on 31 January and that coordination between agencies 'began without interruption.'

Nanos has framed the disputed choices — such as where to send DNA samples — as local operational decisions based on field conditions rather than attempts to sideline federal partners.

Investigators say they have received more than 13,000 tips. Multiple surveillance images have been released showing a masked figure near Guthrie's home. Rewards have been offered for credible leads. Forensics are being shared between the FBI's Quantico lab and local facilities.

The strongest lead so far remains technology. Patel has credited the FBI with unearthing 'chilling' security footage of a masked man on Nancy Guthrie's front porch, an image he says almost did not exist.

He told Hannity that agents initially believed there was no usable recording, but pushed to work with Google to retrieve data that might otherwise have been lost.

'We said, "Hey, is anyone talking to leadership at Google?" We know that there was not a subscription service to capture all of the data ... but can we go into the cache, can we go into the data before it's deleted and see what we can find?' According to Patel, 'that's why you have that image, because the FBI worked with Google to put that image out.'

Disputed 'Walk Away' Claims Deepen Nancy Guthrie Mystery

Separately, NewsNation journalist Brian Entin has highlighted another uncomfortable tension, this time between investigators and Guthrie's own relatives.

Pima County Sergeant Aaron Cross told Entin that the family were 'insistent' at the outset that the incident was a 'walk away' — a voluntary disappearance. He said deputies initially searched as if Guthrie had wandered off and only reframed the case once they failed to find her nearby and saw blood on the front porch.

That claim appears to cut against what Savannah Guthrie herself has said publicly. In a clip shared online, she recalled her sister Annie and brother‑in‑law Tommaso insisting 'from the very early moments' that this was not a typical missing elderly person case. 'She can't wander off,' Savannah said, adding that Camron Guthrie believed almost immediately that the family were dealing with a kidnapping for ransom.

Cross's remarks do not, on their own, make the family unreliable witnesses. Sheriff Nanos has already said all family members have been cleared as suspects.

For now, the only solid facts are stark. Nancy Guthrie was dropped at home by family on the night of 31 January. By the next day she had not joined her usual church livestream. Her phone, wallet, keys and medication were left inside the house.

Authorities believe she was taken from her Arizona home sometime that night. She is officially missing, with no confirmation she is alive or dead. Experts quoted around the case have suggested her chances of survival are uncertain.

Investigators insist that the case remains 'active and ongoing' and that the Pima County Sheriff's Department 'continues to work closely with the FBI' as they sift new leads. More than three months and later, there is still no named suspect, no clear motive and no confirmed trace of where Nancy Guthrie went.