FBI Director Kash Patel is getting heat from a former bureau official for his handling of the investigation into the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie.

During a Tuesday appearance on Fox News, Patel told host Sean Hannity that “substantial progress” had been made in the probe and authorities had identified “persons of interest” in connection with the 84-year-old’s apparent abduction.

However, shortly after his interview, a man detained by authorities for questioning over Guthrie’s disappearance was released from custody.

On Wednesday’s “All In with Chris Hayes,” MS NOW national security intelligence analyst Christopher O’Leary, who served as a senior executive at the FBI’s counterterrorism division, called Patel’s comments on the investigation “incredibly inappropriate.”

“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,” O’Leary said. “He has no leadership experience, no operational experience, no investigative experience.”

The former FBI official told Hayes that Patel’s judgment is “certainly flawed” and “his character and integrity and virtue are absent,” adding that he believes the director “has no loyalty to the Constitution or to the American public or to the mission of the FBI and its people.”