Pete Buttigieg recalls ‘darkest hours’ after separation from children over hoax CPS report

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, 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. Buttigieg sent their children to their grandparent’s house, he said. The accusation was found to be unsubstantiated and politically motivated, he said.

“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”.

“I don’t know who did this, or exactly what prompted them to try,” he said. “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.”