Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg It was revealed on Friday that his family was the target of a fabricated report filed with Child Protective Services (CPS). An anonymous caller claimed Buttigieg admitted to committing violent crimes against his children. A Michigan State Police investigation found the report to be false. Buttigieg called it a “politically motivated hoax.”
He revealed the incident in a lengthy post substack postsdescribed the 24 hours it took to clear his name as “the darkest moment of my life.”
The Associated Press confirmed that Michigan State Police received an anonymous report and that they and CPS “responded and determined the report was false.”
What happened to Pete Buttigieg? 5 things to know
1. Call CPS anonymously. An anonymous caller told CPS a woman claimed to have met Buttigieg at a conference in Alabama several years ago. She allegedly said Buttigieg told her he had committed “unspeakable crimes of violence” and that his children were still in danger.
Buttigieg said he had never been to the town where the alleged meeting took place. In his Substack article, he describes calling as a form of “bashing.”
2. The charges relate to his four-year-old twins. A CPS worker and a Michigan State Trooper arrived at Buttigieg’s home. They told him there were charges against his four-year-old twins. They scheduled forensic interviews with the children for the next day.
Buttigieg was also told that he could not be alone with them until everything was completed.
Buttigieg asked CPS workers to wait until his husband, Chasten, came home with their children. The family agreed that the twins would stay at their grandparents’ house in the evening after dinner.
Buttigieg said he couldn’t describe his anger and sadness at the thought of someone “putting our children into this situation.” He wrote, “They are four years old. Four years old. They don’t know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is.”
Buttigieg’s children were questioned the next day. “I was trying to shake off the idea that I was being charged with a crime so serious that I couldn’t be alone with my own children and agreeing to be interviewed by strangers,” he wrote.
3. CPS is coming on Father’s Day. The incident occurred shortly after Buttigieg shared a Father’s Day family photo online, according to his post on Substack.
Buttigieg is widely considered a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. He has long been the target of anti-LGBTQ attacks. Conservative activists and some Republican officials have opposed efforts to portray same-sex parents as ordinary families in schools and public life.
Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, adopted their twins while he was in the Biden administration.
4. The investigation lasts 24 hours. “The twenty-four hours before they came back were the darkest hours of my life,” Buttigieg wrote.
He continued, “We spent a sleepless night wondering what was going on and spent half the day anxiously imagining what our children were going through without their parents.”
The Substack post further reads, “I waited until my ‘interview’ appointment time finally arrived. The kids returned to their grandparents’ house after their appointment in town, and Chastain was asked to wait upstairs while the officer and CPS worker sat with me and my new attorney at our kitchen table.”
Buttigieg explained in the post that he learned the entire allegations and details of the call after interviewing the children and came to his conclusion.
5. “Politically motivated hoax.” CPS staff working on the case found no evidence to substantiate the allegation. The police officer in charge of the case made it clear that he believed the incident was politically motivated and said it would not be turned over to prosecutors. Michigan State Police confirmed this in a public statement.
Buttigieg wrote that “cruelty, lies, and even deadly violence have been directed against politicians across the ideological spectrum.”
He further praised the authorities’ response to the call, saying: “The police, Crown Prosecution Service professionals and the forensic interviewers who spoke to my children were just following procedure and doing their jobs – an admirable job but what must be a very difficult day to day.”
However, he condemned the anonymous caller who falsely reported him, saying: “When serious allegations are made, they respond. But in this case, their time and resources were wasted on a cruel, politically motivated scam that hurt our families.”
