The Florida attorney general suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis insisted Friday that he still has a job — but the Republican governor’s office said he can’t even enter his old office.
Andrew Warren, who served as Hillsborough County’s top prosecutor until DeSantis announced his resignation on Thursday, insisted to CBS that he was still on the job.
“He doesn’t have the authority to suspend me,” he told the network, adding that “the people elected me to serve in this position and I will continue to do so to keep our neighborhoods safe.”
Warren claimed the move was “unconstitutional” and refused to recognize its legitimacy.
Those comments drew a Twitter rebuke from DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw Friday, who said Warren was “delusional.”
“Andrew Warren is telling the media that he is still the attorney general because he identifies as the attorney general,” she wrote. “Sorry, but that won’t fly here. In Florida we live in the real world. His badge won’t even work to get into his former office today.”
DeSantis said he removed Warren because he did not prosecute serious crimes and had promised to ignore current or future restrictions on abortion or sex-reassignment surgery on minors.
“We will not allow the pathogen that has been around the country to ignore the law, we will not allow it to gain a foothold here in the state of Florida,” the governor said Thursday. “We want to make sure that our laws are enforced and that no individual prosecutor puts himself above the law.”
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister supported the suspension, arguing that local law enforcement had been frustrated by what they viewed as the leniency of Warren’s prosecution.
Warren has slammed his removal, arguing that his office did not handle any cases related to abortion or sex reassignment surgery and that he was being punished for hypothetical wrongdoing.
DeSantis has repeatedly blasted progressive DAs in cities like New York and Los Angeles, arguing that they have allowed crime to spiral.
Warren was scrubbed from the public prosecutor’s website shortly after his suspension, when DeSantis appointed Susan Lopez to take his place.
