President-elect Trump is nominating Hillsborough County, Fla., Sheriff Chad Chronister to head the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. He would replace former New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, who has headed DEA since 2021. Chronister has received "countless commendations and awards for keeping his community SAFE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Chronister has been sheriff since 2017 after then-Sheriff David Gee retired unexpectedly, reports the Tampa Bay Times. He ran successfully for the job in 2018 and 2020 and was reelected this year without opposition. Trump in 2020 pardoned Edward DeBartolo Jr., Chronister's father in law, who had been convicted in a gambling fraud scandal.
Chronister was one of several sheriffs who flanked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he announced in 2022 that he was ousting Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren. Though Warren and Chronister had called each other friends, the sheriff had soured on some of Warren’s policies against pursuing specific non-violent misdemeanor cases. A news conference in which DeSantis announced Warren’s ouster was held at the sheriff’s office. Corruption scandals at DEA have resulted in at least 16 agents facing federal charges since 2015. A federal government watchdog criticized DEA this fall for not timely reporting human rights violations committed by Latin American law enforcement partners who admitted to waterboarding, suffocating and torturing crime suspects