Washington DC – FBI Director Kash Patel blamed local police for bungling the investigation into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance and wasting time by sidelining federal agents.
"We showed up immediately and offered our assistance," Patel told NewsNation's Katie Pavlich in an interview on Thursday. "We were not let in for four days. And that's their choice."
"We offered our assistance to go test the DNA. And it's up to them. They chose to use a private laboratory," he explained. "I even visited our Tucson office, where we had 150 agents and analysts working on the Nancy Guthrie case to provide intelligence."
His latest comments come after he made similar allegations on Sean Hannity's podcast last month, claiming that the FBI had been "kept out of the investigation."
Patel believes that if the FBI were allowed access to the investigation during the first 48 hours after Guthrie's disappearance, the outcome may have been very different.
Guthrie has been missing for more than four months after the 84-year-old vanished in January.
Patel specifically pointed to a decision made by Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos to reportedly deny the FBI's offer of DNA testing assistance.
Nanos' office denies these allegations, telling ABC News in May that the decisions about the processing of 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," he said.