Kash Patel under fire as Nancy Guthrie investigation enters Day 11

Donald Trump's FBI Director Kash Patel likes to announce things. Take the Bureau's investigation into the shooting death of Charlie Kirk, for example. Just a few hours after the shooting, Patel announced on social media, The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Less than 90 minutes later, he was back with this update. Quote, The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Whoa, what? Now that was in September. Just a few months later, after that awful mass shooting at Brown University in December, Patel again announced just a day into the investigation, authorities had, quote, detained a person of interest. And once again, within hours of that post, the person of interest was released. So last night, as agents continue the search for Nancy Guthrie, and we're covering it live on the air here, the mother of Today Show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, Patel took a slightly different approach. He called into a primetime show on Fox to talk about the case and its development. I do believe we are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest. But as you know, with any investigation, you are a person of interest until you're either eliminated or you're actually found to be the culprit or the culprits involved. And that's the stage we're at right now. So I'm guessing you can recognize patterns here. And I've already guessed what I'm about to tell you next. The man who was detained last night for questioning was released just a short time after Patel's Fox News interview. MSNOW National Security Intelligence Analyst Christopher O'Leary led counterterrorism investigations and operations to the FBI for more than two decades. And he joins me now, Chris. Chris, I will say that whoever's been giving him notes has appeared to tell him, like, ratchet down the certainty, you know, emphasize that things aren't done yet. But it doesn't seem to me that helpful to constantly be jumping at an opportunity to announce these things, which really seems to be the MO of the current FBI director. It certainly does, Chris. And it's also incredibly inappropriate. But he's going back to the one skill that he thinks he has, which is self-promoting, diving into the media, diving into social media to compensate for his complete ineptitude at being the director of the FBI, which should not surprise anybody. He has no leadership experience, no operational experience, no investigative experience. His judgment is certainly flawed, and his character and integrity and virtue are absent. So he has no loyalty to the Constitution or to the American public or to the mission of the FBI and its people. And that's really costing victims in this case, like Nancy Guthrie and her family, the American people, more broadly. And, you know, frankly, he's unfit for the job. And it's a disservice to the — this is a disservice to the country and to the people that he's charged with leading, who demonstrated just yesterday their exquisite capabilities with recovering the video. And that is what the FBI is capable of. Top-tier investigations, setting the standard for complex investigations around the world for over a century, and he's deliberately tried to attack it, along with now former Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who thankfully has departed, you know, through conspiracy theories, but also, since they've been in office, attacking career professionals and getting rid of them. I'll point out that the person who would be in charge of this massive response would have been Brian Driscoll, the assistant director of the Critical Incident Response Group, until he was fired in August without cause. Prior to that, he was the commander of the elite hostage rescue team. This is one of the finest professionals I've ever worked with. And it's these kind of decisions that Cash Patel makes. He's not making good investigative decisions or good sound judgments. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it just seems like you don't want to get—the last thing you want to do is get people's hopes up and then disappoint them. You want to just wait and hold on and see what happens and let things play out. On that score, you know, there was a lot of activity yesterday because obviously the video was such an enormous break. To be able to get that video, it was very technically difficult to acquire for reasons that remain a little obscure to me, but they were able to recover it. Now you've got someone who's in a jacket that looks to be distinctive, and he's got a hat, and he's got gloves. And there was a lot of activity yesterday. We're here now 24 hours later. It doesn't seem like that cracked the case. What do you suppose is happening right now 24 hours out from that, or more than 24 hours out from that enormous development? Well, while I have no confidence in the capability and the leadership of Cash Patel, I am absolutely confident in the capabilities and the professionalism of FBI agents. The partnerships that they've built over the years, and both with state and local partners and other federal agencies, and the private sector partners, which was demonstrated through the partnership with Google. So the exquisite capabilities of the FBI will find this individual with the public support and really just refine the investigation. I'm confident that they will find out what happened to Mrs. Guthrie and bring some resolution to the case, because the FBI has done that for decades, long before it started being attacked by Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. Sometimes they talk about the first 72 hours of investigation, particularly after homicide, is incredibly important. In this case, you've got this ongoing situation, which is I don't believe we have any public proof of life. We don't know what her status is, Mrs. Guthrie. Presumably, she has been held hostage. There's been ransom notes. How much does time matter under these conditions? Well, it depends in each case. And I wouldn't want to, you know, guess on this. But I will give you an example. I actually worked a hostage case of an 84-year-old nun who was taken by IDA in Northwest Africa, Jainam. She was held for 90 days. She had similar heart issues, and she was recovered safely and extremely healthy. So, you know, there is hope for Mrs. Guthrie. And again, the dedicated professionals and highly capable professionals of the FBI and its partners will find the perpetrator and hopefully recover Mrs. Guthrie. Yeah, that's an incredibly relevant comparison there. Chris O'Leary, thank you very much.