The high-profile Democrat and potential 2028 presidential contender said he couldn’t see his twins for 24 hours as report was investigated.
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Democrat Pete Buttigieg said Friday his family was the victim of a bogus and politically motivated complaint to child protective services accusing him of “unspeakable violent crimes,” an allegation that cut off his access to his 4-year-old twin sons for 24 hours as authorities investigated.
“We’re used to nasty, hateful, and sometimes violent things being said about us and even about our family. But this is the first time someone managed to invade our lives like this — and drag our children into it,” the prominent Democrat and former Biden transportation secretary said in an 1,800-word Substack post revealing it.
Michigan State Police confirmed in a statement they received and investigated an anonymous report they dismissed as unfounded.
Widely viewed as a formidable potential 2028 presidential contender, Buttigieg is among the most prominent Democrats publicly pressing his party’s case against the Trump administration and policies he argues are hurting Americans.
Buttigieg, 44, lives in Michigan with husband Chasten Buttigieg, near his in-laws. He noted the threat came during Pride Month celebrating gay culture and shortly after the couple posted photos for Father’s Day.
In his post titled “A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family,” Buttigieg wrote in detail about being “swatted” by a false report, the children each undergoing hour-long interviews with investigators and then staying their grandparents.
“The twenty-four hours until they returned are among the darkest hours of my life,” Buttigieg wrote.
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Buttigieg said investigators said the anonymous allegation came from a caller who said he spoke 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 wrote, adding that he told investigators he’d never been to the town mentioned by the caller and that investigators told him that the allegation would not be referred to prosecutors.
Buttigeig said that he has been denounced, heckled and subjected to death threats while in political life, but called the weaponization of child protective services “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”
State police spokesperson Shanon Banner said in a statement that “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.”
Through his political organization Win the Era, Buttigieg declined an interview request and referred other questions to the state police.
Buttigieg said he would seek consequences for the people responsible.
“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.”
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