Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., has withdrawn his name for consideration to be the White House drug czar after a report showed he pushed a bill that sought to make it more difficult for the federal government to go after prescription drug companies carrying out suspicious narcotic shipments.
“Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
Trump nominated Marino as director for the Office of national Drug Control Policy on Sept. 1. The announcement came weeks after Trump declared the opioid crisis a “national emergency.”
On Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV., called on Trump to pull his nomination following the investigation by the Washington Post and “60 Minutes” was published on Sunday.
Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2017
“Congressman Marino led the effort in Congress to move through a bill that has made it significantly harder for the Drug Enforcement Agency to enforce our nation’s anti-drug diversion laws,” Manchin wrote in a letter to Trump. “For years, wholesale drug distributors were sending millions of pills into small communities — far more than was reasonably medically necessary.”
Trump told reporters Monday afternoon that he would “look into the report” and “take it very seriously.”
“He’s a good man and I have not spoken to him but I will speak to him to make that determination,” Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden.
Manchin praised Marino’s decision and thanked Trump “for recognizing the need for real leadership at the ONDCP.”
“We need a drug czar who has seen these devastating effects and who is passionate about ending this opioid epidemic. I look forward to working with President Trump to find a drug czar that will serve West Virginians and our entire country,” Manchin said in a statement Tuesday. “I am eager to make this wrong right and work with my colleagues and the president to repeal this horrible law that should have never passed in the first place.”
The White House had initially considered Marino for the position in April until he suddenly was dropped from Trump’s list of possible drug czars.
A report last month said Marino allegedly judge-shopped for someone who would be willing to expunge a friend’s cocaine-dealing record in the late 1990s.
Marino was a U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania under former President George W. Bush.
