TAMPA — Three days after President-elect Donald Trump tapped him to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said late Tuesday that he no longer wants to be considered for the job.

The sheriff made the abrupt announcement on social media.

“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.”

The sheriff offered no specific details about his reason for withdrawing his nomination.

Trump announced Saturday evening that Chronister was his pick to be the administrator for the federal agency in charge of enforcing the nation’s drug laws. The selection, while widely praised, was unusual in that Chronister had spent his career in local law enforcement.

The selection came a week after Trump picked Hillsborough County native Pam Bondi, Florida’s former attorney general, to lead the U.S. Department of Justice. Bondi, who began her career as a prosecutor in Tampa, has worked alongside Chronister and would have worked closely with him in his role at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Chronister has been Hillsborough County sheriff since 2017 after then-Sheriff David Gee retired unexpectedly. Chronister was appointed as his replacement on Gee’s recommendation.

He ran successfully for the job in 2018 and 2020 and was reelected this year without opposition.

Chronister is married to Nikki DeBartolo, the daughter of Eddie DeBartolo Jr., former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, and granddaughter of the man who pioneered the shopping mall concept in the 1950s.

He was an ally of former Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren, a Democrat who drew attention for pursuing a criminal justice reform agenda. Their relationship later soured and Chronister became a key player behind the scenes when Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Warren from office in 2022.

The sheriff voiced frustration with Warren’s approach to prosecuting cases. He later championed the candidacy of Suzy Lopez, the longtime prosecutor DeSantis appointed to replace Warren. Lopez, with financial support from Chronister and other Republicans, beat Warren in the November election.

Chronister called his nomination to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration the “honor of a lifetime.”

DeSantis likewise praised his selection in a social media post.

“When we removed Soros-backed prosecutor Andrew Warren from office, nobody supported us more strongly than Sheriff Chad Chronister,” the post said, referencing George Soros, the Hungarian-American financier tied to progressive causes. “And when the deposed Soros prosecutor ran to reclaim the office this year, Sheriff Chronister led the opposition to that candidacy and helped ensure the election of tough-on-crime prosecutor Suzy Lopez. Hillsborough County is safer as a result.”

DeSantis congratulated Chronister on his nomination and said he looked forward to Chronister “taking on the drug cartels on behalf of the American people.”

Though the nomination drew praise from local law enforcement leaders, some national conservative political figures were questioning the selection by Monday and Tuesday. They noted that in 2020, Chronister arrested a church pastor, Rodney Howard-Browne, who refused to abide by COVID-19 lockdown orders.

Charges against the pastor were later dropped. In a statement issued Sunday, Howard-Browne called Chronister a friend and said he believed he acted with good intentions. He praised the sheriff’s leadership and called him an “ideal candidate” to lead the DEA.

Some critics also questioned Chronister’s policies and past actions on guns, protests and other issues. Others flagged comments Chronister made in a video about Florida’s immigration laws that he released in 2023 that circulated again online after Trump named him last weekend.

In the video, the sheriff praised the “rich diversity” of his community and called it “a place where people from all walks of life come together.”

He said it was important to note his office “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities. We do not target individuals based on their immigration status. That’s the authority of federal agencies.”

Trump has made a sweeping crackdown on immigration a central focus of his campaign and his aims for his coming administration.

Early in his tenure, Chronister cast himself as a moderate Republican, saying he viewed his job as nonpartisan.

“The right’s gone way too far right for me,” he told the Tampa Bay Times in 2019. He characterized himself as “the most Democratic of Republicans,” fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

After a string of mass shootings elsewhere in the nation in 2019, Chronister spoke of enhanced mental health screenings for gun purchases, a position decidedly out of step with the National Rifle Association. He also voiced support for universal background checks and red flag laws, which allow courts to order guns taken away from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. He also advocated for alternatives to arrest for juveniles and championed vocational programs for jail detainees.