{"id":728466,"date":"2026-06-27T03:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728466\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T03:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:36:14","slug":"pete-buttigieg-recalls-darkest-hours-after-separation-from-children-over-hoax-cps-report-pete-buttigieg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728466\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Buttigieg recalls \u2018darkest hours\u2019 after separation from children over hoax CPS report | Pete Buttigieg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pete Buttigieg<\/a>, the former US transportation secretary, said on Friday an anonymous and \u2013 police say \u2013 meritless accusation led Child Protective Services to investigate his family.<\/p>\n

In a Substack post<\/a> published on Friday, Buttigieg described the incident \u2013 which resulted in him being separated from his four-year-old twins \u2013 as \u201camong the darkest hours of my life\u201d and likened the accusation to \u201cswatting\u201d, the practice of calling police with a false report of an emergency to trigger a law enforcement response.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team,\u201d Buttigieg wrote. \u201cHadn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor twenty-four deeply distressing hours, we had no idea what I was accused of or what was about to happen,\u201d Buttigieg wrote. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Michigan<\/a> state police acknowledged the incident, saying the department had received an \u201canonymous report\u201d earlier this week and \u201cdetermined the report was false\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Michigan state police and Child Protective Services responded and determined the report was false,\u201d said Shanon Banner, the department spokesperson. \u201cFalse reports are dangerous and divert law enforcement officers and Child Protective Services workers from responding to legitimate emergencies and protecting vulnerable children and families.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s house in Michigan.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 house.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn anonymous caller had contacted CPS,\u201d Buttigieg, a possible<\/a> 2028 presidential contender, wrote. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buttigieg had never been to the place the caller claimed, he wrote, describing the accusation as a \u201ccruel, politically motivated hoax that harmed our family\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not lost on me that this happened soon after we shared photos of our family on social media for Father\u2019s Day. Or that this occurred during a month<\/a> meant to make families like ours feel welcome and safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So-called \u201cswatting<\/a>\u201d incidents have been on the rise, targeting elected officials and prominent figures in what experts warn has become a tool of intimidation<\/a> as the political landscape has become increasingly polarized. But Buttigieg argued the false claims against his family injected a \u201cdifferent\u201d level of harassment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow our family is left to deal with the aftermath,\u201d he wrote, adding: \u201cI don\u2019t 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\u2019s kids.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, said on Friday an anonymous and \u2013 police say \u2013 meritless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-728466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}