Fact-checking speculation that Nancy Guthrie's abduction is linked to the Epstein files

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact.
By Maria Briceño, PolitiFact

After Nancy Guthrie's Feb. 1 abduction from her Tucson, Arizona, home, her daughter "Today" host Savannah Guthrie put out a call on social media for tips on her mother's whereabouts, pleading for her safe return.

WATCH: Where the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping investigation stands as it enters its 3rd week

So far, social media users have been less than helpful. With the Justice Department's Jan. 30 release of more than 3 million pages of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, X users proposed bogus links between the abduction and the file release.

Multiple X posts include a photo of Savannah Guthrie's family and an accusation about her husband, Michael Feldman.

"Her husband's company is listed as a co conspirator in the Epstein files… FGS Global," reads a Feb. 12 X post with over 1 million views. "In case you're wondering why now of all times for Savannah Guthrie's mother to be 'kidnapped.'"

The co-anchor's husband isn't named in the Epstein files, and neither is his current company.

Searching the digital Epstein files, we found one 2013 email to Epstein from a person named Michael Feldman, but it seems to be someone else, introducing himself as a "theoretical physicist."

Guthrie's husband is a communications consultant who previously worked in the Clinton administration as chief liaison to Congress and senior adviser for former Vice President Al Gore. Feldman currently works as North American co-chairman of FGS Global, an international public relations firm.

We did not find FGS Global listed in Justice Department files, but another public affairs company that was merged to found FGS Global was listed. As a community note on one of the X posts said, Feldman helped found Glover Park Group in 2001, and its name appears twice in the Epstein files. The firm merged with other companies to form FGS Global in 2021.

PolitiFact reached out to FGS Global, but didn't receive an immediate response.

The first mention was in 2014. The office of Terje Rød-Larsen, a former diplomat and former president of the International Peace Institute, shared a list of articles with Epstein, and one story mentioned the Glover Park Group's work lobbying for Egyptian interests.

The second was in a 2015 email forwarded by Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury secretary and former Harvard University president. Summers suggested that Epstein contact Joe Lockhart, who worked at the Glover Park Group and served as press secretary during the Clinton administration, as well as other Democratic politicians. The initial email says Lockhart "helped Clinton and Genera= (sic) Petraeus." (Former CIA director and retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus had an extramarital affair uncovered in 2012.)

Screenshot of a Jan. 8, 2015, email exchange in the Epstein files.

These mentions are not evidence that Feldman, FGS Global or Glover Park Group were "co-conspirators" with Epstein.

Being mentioned in the files does not mean criminal wrongdoing. We reported in 2025 that figures such as President Donald Trump and Clinton appear in the files, but that doesn't mean they are guilty or charged with crimes. As of February 2026, Epstein and his coconspirator Ghislaine Maxwell are the only people who have been convicted in the scheme to sexually exploit and abuse multiple minor girls.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said Feb. 16 on X that the Guthrie family, including "all siblings and spouses," had been cleared as possible suspects in the Nancy Guthrie case.

We rate the X posts' claims about Guthrie's husband's company False.