Trump nominated this Florida sheriff for DEA gig. Then he saw his COVID policies. | Opinion

Donald Trump’s initial nomination of a Florida sheriff to run the Drug Enforcement Agency shows just how little he has vetted candidates for important positions in his upcoming administration.

And even more alarming, what it takes for one of Trump’s picks to fall out of favor with him.

When Trump picked Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister to run the DEA two weeks ago, it wasn’t a nomination that fell into the growing pool of unworthy, unqualified picks that were making headlines.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chronister was a credible choice for Trump

Chronister was a credible choice. He was a sheriff who had been a law enforcement officer with the Hillsborough County department for 32 years. He was first appointed as its sheriff in 2017 by then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott. And Chronister had since won two elections for the sheriff’s job, running as a Republican.

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In nominating Chronister as the DEA head, Trump said Chronister would be working closely with his attorney-general pick, Pam Bondi, who was also from the Tampa area, "to secure the border, stop the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs across the Southern border."

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Chronister’s selection barely went noticed while Trump’s other picks — Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz and the pro-wrestling woman for the Department of Education — called into question Trump’s judgment.

At Trump’s urging, they fought headwinds to step down, continuing to fight for Senate approval of their appointments.

Then Chad Chronister withdrew his name for consideration as DEA head

Chad Chronister was tapped as President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, but he withdrew his name.
Chad Chronister was tapped as President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, but he withdrew his name.

Meanwhile, four days after his nomination, Chronister quietly withdrew his name for consideration as DEA head. At least that’s what he said.

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Chronister called his nomination by Trump “the honor of a lifetime” but said he came to the conclusion quickly that he should pass up the DEA job for the good of the people in Hillsborough County.

“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,” Chronister wrote. “There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling.

“I sincerely appreciate the nomination, outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as Sheriff of Hillsborough County.”

It sounded like a sanitized version of the truth, something far less than the real story coming from somebody who was looking for a graceful exit.

We might never have known what was really behind Chronister’s alleged change of heart over the DEA job, if it hadn’t been from Trump’s brittle reaction to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

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“Trump’s DEA Pick Pulls Out In Latest Setback,” the headline read.

Trump says he was the one who pulled Chronister's nomination

Trump erupted on social media at the “setback” headline, taking it as an attack against him. He accused the Wall Street Journal of becoming “more obnoxious and unreadable” and then wrote on social media what was really behind Chronister no longer being considered for DEA administrator.

“Besides, he didn’t pull out,” Trump said. “I pulled him out, because I did not like what he said to my pastors and other supporters.”

“My pastors.” Oh, now this all makes sense.

Trump apparently picked Chronister without even doing a Google search on his name. If he had, he would have found my column and a lot of other news stories about how Chronister had dealt with televangelist Rodney Howard-Browne, a mega-church maniac and defiant public health threat during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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It was a well-documented story easily available after a click on a computer search engine.

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Chronister had ordered the arrest of Howard-Browne in March of 2020 after the pastor of the River at Tampa Bay Church had, according to Chronister’s office, “intentionally and repeatedly hosted church services with hundreds of members in attendance, despite knowing he was in violation of orders set in place by the President, the Governor of Florida, the CDC and the Hillsborough County Emergency Policy Group.”

The charges were dropped two months later after the pastor implemented social distancing rules for his church.

But before that happened, a robust war of words erupted between the sheriff and the pastor.

"His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk, and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week, in danger,” Chronister said.

The church already had the technology to hold virtual services, so there was no reason to risk people’s lives, the sheriff added.

The pastor told his congregants to ignore the county order that limited gatherings to no more than 10 people. That nobody could stop his congregation from meeting.

“We’re raising revivalists, not pansies,” the pastor said.

Howard-Browne also made wild assurances that nobody could spread COVID in his church. His church had installed 13 special coronavirus-vanquishing machines that kill “every virus in the place,” he told them.

“If somebody walks in the door, it’s like, it kills everything on them. If they sneeze, it shoots it down at like 100 mph,” he told his congregants. “It’ll neutralize it in split seconds. So we have the most sterile building in, I don’t know, all of America.”

Howard-Browne’s brand of Christianity is replete with this kind of supernatural hokum.

For example, in one of his sermons, he told his congregants that their faith would be rewarded by God with free toilet paper.

“What you have in your hand will multiply, and every day, there will be multiplication,” he sermonized. “You’ll look at your toilet paper, and you’ll think, ‘I’m gonna run out of toilet paper’ but you have another roll, where that other one was. You don’t know how did that even take place … ”

“You think you’re going to run out, and when you look again, there’s still enough,” he said. “That’s supernatural sustenance.”

Chronister enforced the law during COVID

After Trump nominated Chronister for the DEA job, social media posters began complaining about how the sheriff had chosen to enforce the law rather than allow megachurches like Howard-Browne’s to hold weekly super-spreader events during the early weeks of COVID.

“You belong in jail. Tyrant,” one poster wrote to Chronister.

Another posted: “We don't forget tyranny, and you were an early adopter of tyrannical control.”

A day before Chronister wrote that he was withdrawing his nomination, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, joined the fray.

“I’m going to call ’em like I see ’em,” Massie posted. “Trump’s nominee for head of DEA should be disqualified for ordering the arrest of a pastor who defied COVID lockdowns.”

Suddenly, Trump was against his own pick — and this time, a pick that was actually qualified and suitable for the job.

Chronister took his job seriously

What doomed Chronister's chances to head the DEA had nothing do with fentanyl or the Southern Border. It was that he was a law enforcement officer who took his job to enforce the law seriously.

Even against religious hucksters.

And in the end, Trump — a newly repackaged religious huckster himself who has a side job selling $60 Bibles to those who imagine him an exemplar of Christianity — picked being the protector of dangerous charlatans he calls “my pastors” over the rule of law.

Send in the clowns.

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Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, part of the Gannett Newspapers chain.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Trump cancels Florida sheriff DEA pick over COVID policy | Opinion