Trump’s DEA nom­i­nee with­draws from con­sid­er­a­tion

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Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty Sher­iff Chad Chro­nis­ter has with­drawn from con­sid­er­a­tion to head Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump‘s Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion.

In a state­ment, Chro­nis­ter said Tues­day being nom­i­nat­ed “the hon­or of a life­time,” but was step­ping down after the “grav­i­ty of this very impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ty set in.”

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“Over the past sev­er­al days, as the grav­i­ty of this very impor­tant respon­si­bil­i­ty set in, I’ve con­clud­ed that I must respect­ful­ly with­draw from con­sid­er­a­tion. There is more work to be done for the cit­i­zens of Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty and a lot of ini­tia­tives I am com­mit­ted to ful­fill­ing,” he wrote in a state­ment. “I sin­cere­ly appre­ci­ate the nom­i­na­tion, out­pour­ing of sup­port by the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing my ser­vice as Sher­iff of Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R‑KY) voiced con­cerns over Chronister’s nom­i­na­tion, announced by Trump on Sat­ur­day, regard­ing his arrest of a pas­tor for defy­ing COVID-19 lock­down orders.

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Momen­tum against the Flori­da sher­iff grad­u­al­ly built over the ensu­ing days, despite strong show­ings of sup­port from Flori­da Repub­li­cans includ­ing Sen. Rick Scott (R‑FL), who called Chro­nis­ter .

“When I appoint­ed Chad as Hills­bor­ough Coun­ty Sher­iff in 2017, he had already spent more than 20 years in law enforce­ment fight­ing every day to pro­tect Flori­da fam­i­lies,” Scott claimed. “His work over the last 7 years shows Chad’s ded­i­ca­tion to crack­ing down on crime, fight­ing the fen­tanyl cri­sis, and show­ing up every day to keep Florid­i­ans safe.”

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Chro­nis­ter joins for­mer Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL) as the sole nom­i­nees to Trump’s Cab­i­net to with­draw from con­sid­er­a­tion before the Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion process. Gaetz, Trump’s first pick to be Attor­ney Gen­er­al, backed out after meet­ings with Repub­li­cans in the Sen­ate showed he lacked the votes to be con­firmed.