Chad Chronister, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced Tuesday he is withdrawing his name from consideration, citing the goals he has yet to complete as sheriff of Hillsborough County, Florida.
Calling it “the honor of a lifetime” to have been nominated, Chronister said in a social media post on X, “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.”
Trump had announced Saturday that he’d tap the Republican Florida sheriff to be the DEA’s administrator and help to “stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs across the Southern Border.”
CBS News Miami
Chronister has been sheriff of Florida’s Hillsborough County since he was appointed to the role by then-Gov. Rick Scott 2017, and he has won reelection twice. He has been with the department for 32 years. Hillsborough County includes much of the Tampa Bay metro area.
The outgoing DEA administrator is Anne Milgram, who has held the role for nearly all of President Biden’s term.
The DEA, which is part of the Justice Department, has approximately 10,000 employees and is tasked with enforcing America’s drug laws. Among its major edicts has been addressing the opioid crisis.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” in September, Milgram said the U.S. is “losing a generation” to fentanyl.
“As complex and as massive a problem as this is, it’s also not a whodunit. We know who’s responsible,” Milgram said. “It’s the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel that are based in Mexico. They dominate and control the entire global fentanyl supply chain, starting in China, going to Mexico, coming into the United States.”
During his campaign, Trump pledged to crack down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking, and this week, Trump followed through by threatening to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on both Mexico and Canada until those issues are properly addressed to his liking.
