Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, said on Friday an anonymous and – police say – meritless accusation led Child Protective Services to investigate his family.
In a Substack post published on Friday, Buttigieg described the incident – which resulted in him being separated from his four-year-old twins – as “among the darkest hours of my life” and likened the accusation to “swatting”, the practice of calling police with a false report of an emergency to trigger a law enforcement response.
“Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team,” Buttigieg wrote. “Hadn’t thought of that? Me neither, until a few days ago when a police officer and a CPS worker showed up at our home and politely asked to speak with me.”
“For twenty-four deeply distressing hours, we had no idea what I was accused of or what was about to happen,” Buttigieg wrote. “We could not understand someone abusing the system like this in order to hurt me and my family with an absurd and easily refuted allegation of a horrific crime.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Michigan state police acknowledged the incident, saying the department had received an “anonymous report” earlier this week and “determined the report was false”.
“The Michigan state police and Child Protective Services responded and determined the report was false,” said Shanon Banner, the department spokesperson. “False reports are dangerous and divert law enforcement officers and Child Protective Services workers from responding to legitimate emergencies and protecting vulnerable children and families.”
According to Buttigieg, he first learned of the allegation this week, when a police officer and a Child Protective Services worker knocked on the door of his family’s house in Michigan.
The social worker and police officer investigating the accusation required the former transportation secretary and his husband, Chasten, to separate themselves from their children for 24 hours, he said. Buttigieg sent their children to their grandparents’ house.
“An anonymous caller had contacted CPS,” Buttigieg, a possible 2028 presidential contender, wrote. “The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her that I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were still at risk. That was all.”
Buttigieg had never been to the place the caller claimed, he wrote, describing the accusation as a “cruel, politically motivated hoax that harmed our family”.
“It’s not lost on me that this happened soon after we shared photos of our family on social media for Father’s Day. Or that this occurred during a month meant to make families like ours feel welcome and safe,” he said.
So-called “swatting” incidents have been on the rise, targeting elected officials and prominent figures in what experts warn has become a tool of intimidation as the political landscape has become increasingly polarized. But Buttigieg argued the false claims against his family injected a “different” level of harassment.
“Now our family is left to deal with the aftermath,” he wrote, adding: “I don’t know how much we can do about it, but so help me God, if there is any way to press civil or criminal charges over this, we will. Not just for our own sakes but to draw a line that I thought everyone already recognized: do not mess with someone’s kids.”
