Kash Patel’s FBI Flails as Person of Interest in Guthrie Case Released

FBI Director Kash Patel has once again prematurely announced a major update in a criminal investigation, only to have to walk it back hours later. 

Police detained and questioned a person of interest on Tuesday night regarding the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, who was taken from her Arizona home over a week ago. New security camera footage released by the FBI  shows masked men on the front porch of Guthrie’s home the night she disappeared, but she still remains missing.

On Tuesday, Patel went on Fox News with Sean Hannity and touted the FBI’s “brilliant” relationship with private-sector companies that allowed them to make “substantial progress in these last 36 [to] 48 hours. 

“And I do believe we are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest,” he continued. At least one of those “persons” appears to be a completely innocent man.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, supported by Patel’s FBI, detained a man who identified himself as Carlos at a traffic stop in Tucson on Tuesday. He was released the same day, and later spoke to reporters outside his home, profusely proclaiming his innocence. 

“[It was] terrifying. Something I didn’t do … I felt like I was being kidnapped bro. They didn’t tell me anything at the beginning,” Carlos said, visibly shaken as his voice wavered. He said he was followed, detained at random, and questioned about his “whereabouts” and personal information by police. He was “held against his will” and says he wasn’t read his Miranda rights until two hours into his detainment.

“Are you ever up in Tucson?” a reporter asked Carlos. 

“I work in Tucson … GLS, deliver packages,” he replied. 

“Do you think you might have delivered a package to Nancy Guthrie’s house?” 

“I don’t know, might’ve been a possibility.”

Carlos, answering questions in both English and Spanish, later stated that he had no idea who Guthrie even was, and that he didn’t watch the Today show.

“I hope they get the suspect. Because I’m not it. And they better do their job and find the suspect that did it so they can clear my name. And I’m done. Look at what I’m putting my family through,” he continued. “Not just them, but my parents in Tucson.”

Detaining and interrogating a random person before throwing them out the door has become a pattern for the Patel FBI in high-profile investigations. 

Last September, Patel came under fire from the left and right for his premature social media post the day Charlie Kirk was shot, declaring that “the subject for the horrific shooting” was in custody—a claim almost immediately contradicted by local officials. Patel later backtracked, and the manhunt ensued for another 27-plus hours before the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was turned in by a family member. 

And in December, the FBI director wrote a long post boasting about the bureau’s efforts to detain another person of interest in the Brown University shooting that killed two and wounded nine. Blunders like these are only magnified under a bureau now left to the whims of Patel, who insists on force and bravado that does not match his success rate.

Gregory Bovino praised the agent who shot Chicago resident and U.S. citizen Marimar Martinez five times in an October email newly released by federal prosecutors Tuesday.

Bovino, who was leading Border Patrol at the time, wrote, “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” to Charles Exum, who shot Martinez, and other federal agents in the city.

The government had assembled text messages from Exum as part of evidence in an attempt to prosecute Martinez, a U.S. citizen and teacher’s assistant. Exum had screenshot the email and sent it in a text to a family member. Prosecutors ended up dropping their case against Martinez after her attorneys raised questions about the mishandling of evidence.

On the day of the shooting, Exum texted his fellow agents that “she was trying to run me over.” Other text messages from Exum’s phone show praise from his fellow agents, with one of them calling him “a legend among agents.”

Exum also claimed in his text messages that Bovino passed along congratulations from high-ranking members of the executive branch. A member of a group text asked Exum, “Are they supportive?”

Exum replied, “Big time. Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself … according to Bovino.”

That would seem to indicate that President Trump supported an agent who bragged, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys,” after shooting a U.S. citizen. Bovino has already lost his job due to his conduct in Minneapolis following his supervision of violence in Chicago. Will any other federal agents—and the people in the White House who gave them such extraordinary power—face any consequences?

At the eleventh hour, a trio of Republicans decided the president’s tariff program is worth questioning.

Representatives Thomas Massie, Kevin Kiley, and Don Bacon voted alongside Democrats late Tuesday, rejecting a rule that would have blocked future efforts by Congress to challenge economic tariffs enacted by the White House. The final vote was 217–214.

Their sudden position change came hours after Donald Trump casually admitted—or perhaps boasted—to Fox News that his global levies were motivated by power and retribution.

“You know, I had an incident with a very nice country, Switzerland,” Trump said. “They were paying no tariffs when sending stuff over here like nobody could believe, and we had a $42 billion deficit and we weren’t taking anything.”

“So I put on a 30 percent tariff, which is very low. Still we were having a big deficit, but it was after,” he continued.

Trump then said he received an “emergency” phone call with Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter, a member of the country’s seven-member Federal Council and chief of the country’s Department of Finance. Trump, however, mistakenly referred to her as the country’s prime minister.

“She was very aggressive but nice, but very aggressive. She said, ‘Sir, we are a small country. We can’t do this. We can’t do this.’ I couldn’t get her off the phone,” Trump told Fox. “I said, ‘You may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you.’”

“And I didn’t really like the way she talked to us and so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent,” Trump said.

“But I realized: You know Switzerland, you think of it as ultra-chic, ultra-perfect. They’re not. They are only that because we allow them to rip us off and make all this money,” he added.

The tiny Republican coalition’s revolt signals that the House is not so willing to hand over the country’s purse strings to the executive branch, even if 214 conservative lawmakers voted in favor of doing so.

The opening gives Democrats the opportunity to challenge and officially disapprove of Trump’s economic agenda. That includes the chance to force a vote “as soon as this week” on a resolution that would object to his 25 percent levy on Canadian products.

Bacon, one of the three conservatives to side with Democrats on the issue, in part seemed motivated by Trump’s recent dealings with America’s northern neighbor.

“We have a trade agreement with them, and I don’t like how the White House has treated our neighbor and ally,” Bacon told Politico Monday.

Donald Trump’s outrageous threat to close a new bridge between Michigan and Canada appears to have been at the behest of a billionaire who operates another bridge between the two countries.

Just hours before Trump published a scattered tirade Monday night against the new Gordie Howe International Bridge, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Matthew Moroun, whose family operates the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, two officials told The New York Times Tuesday.

Moroun’s family has spent years mounting legal challenges against the new six-lane bridge, which threatens to dilute trade across the Ambassador Bridge. After the meeting, Lutnick called Trump and the two discussed the matter, officials told the Times.

Shortly after their call, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would block the Gordie Howe opening unless Canada “fully compensated” America “for everything” and gives him what he wants: “at least half” ownership of the bridge.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was forced to clarify that Michigan already has an ownership stake in the bridge, and that—despite Trump claiming otherwise—the construction was made with U.S. steel and labor.

Speaking at a White House press briefing Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the sudden opposition to the bridge was “just another example of President Trump putting America’s interests first.”

Rather, it’s just another example of Trump apparently taking orders from billionaires. Since 2019, Moroun has donated more than $605,000 to Trump and the Republican Party.

House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia swiftly launched an investigation into Lutnick’s conspicuous act of crony capitalism.

In a letter addressed to Lutnick Wednesday, Garcia wrote: “It is flatly unacceptable and undeniably corrupt to allow a wealthy donor to dictate our foreign and economic policy in order to protect his personal business interests, and the public deserves to know if you or President Trump stand to receive additional benefits from Mr. Moroun in exchange for your sudden interference.”

“Your interference could increase traffic congestion, reduce economic opportunity, and damage trade between the United States and Canada,” Garcia wrote. “As such, I request information regarding any communications and undue influence the Moroun family may have had with the Trump Administration.”

This story has been updated.

The Department of Justice tried and failed to indict Democrats in Congress who made a video urging troops not to obey illegal orders. Now the legislators are triumphant, but also furious. 

A federal grand jury on Tuesday refused to indict the members of Congress in the video: Representative Jason Crow, Senator Mark Kelly, Representative Maggie Goodlander, Senator Elissa Slotkin, Representative Chris Deluzio, and Representative Chrissy Houlahan. It’s not clear if all the lawmakers or only some of them were referred to the grand jury, but they’re all pissed.

“Tonight we can score one for the Constitution, our freedom of speech, and the rule of law,” Slotkin said in a post on X Tuesday.  

Kelly, a former Navy captain who has also been targeted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, called the attempted indictment an “outrageous abuse of power.”  

“It wasn’t enough for Pete Hegseth to censure me and threaten to demote me, now it appears they tried to have me charged with a crime—all because of something I said that they didn’t like. That’s not the way things work in America,” the Arizona senator said in a statement. 

On X, Deluzio said, “I will not be intimidated for a single second by the Trump Administration or Justice Department lawyers who tried and failed to indict me today.” 

Crow said that Americans “should be appalled by the fact that Donald Trump and his goons at Department of Justice and everywhere else are weaponizing their justice system just to try to silence dissent and to crush political opponents.” 

“Not only should Americans be angry at that—they have chosen the wrong people. If these fuckers think that they’re going to intimidate us and threaten and bully me into silence, and they’re going to go after political opponents and get us to back down, they have another thing coming,” Crow said, adding that the “tide is turning” with Americans “rising up against the corruption and the rank abuse of this administration.” 

In a statement on X, Houlahan said, “This is good news for the Constitution and the free speech protections it guarantees. The grand jury upheld the rule of law—this is a win for all Americans.” 

Goodlander vowed in a statement that “no matter the threats, I will keep doing my job and upholding my oath to our Constitution.” 

President Trump had accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by death” simply for exercising their First Amendment rights. Now it seems that he and the DOJ wanted to prosecute them as some kind of petty attempt to prevent criticism of his administration’s disregard for the law. While it failed this time, how much further will Trump go in breaking the law and punishing those who point it out?