Pete Buttigieg Denounces False Report to CPS About His Family: ‘Cruel, Politically Motivated Hoax’

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Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg published an emotional Substack post Friday describing a “cruel, politically motivated hoax” his family had recently suffered when someone made a false report to Child Protective Services.

Buttigieg married his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, in 2018 and the couple adopted two newborn twins in 2021. The children, a boy named Gus and a girl named Penelope, are now four years old.

He shared the Substack post on his social media, writing that he was “beyond furious” after “someone targeted my family for harm with a false report.”

“We’re physically OK, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t harmed,” he added. “Whatever your politics, this is awful, wrong, and can never become normal.”

In the post, Buttigieg explained that a few days ago a police officer and CPS worker had showed up at his house, comparing the false report to “swatting,” where someone anonymously calls 911 with a false report of imminent danger, intending to incite a law enforcement response that at best will cause stress and trauma to the target and at worst has led to injuries and even death.

Buttigieg was told the children would have a “forensic interview” the next day and neither he nor any other family member were allowed to be present. He would be interviewed after the children and only then would he learn about the allegation against him.

He described his reaction as “bewildered and troubled” but trying to “stay calm,” but his stomach turned when the CPS worker informed him he was not allowed to be alone around the children until after their interview the next day. Buttigieg added that the officer and CPS worker were “courteous and professional,” but “their time and resources were wasted in a cruel, politically motivated hoax that harmed our family.”

The next twenty-four “deeply distressing” hours were “among the darkest hours of my life,” he wrote.

According to Buttigieg, the visit was triggered by an “anonymous caller” who had contacted CPS and claimed “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.”

He described the “obvious questions” the officer asked him, illustrating how “absurd and easily refuted” the allegation was against him and his relief he was soon exonerated:

The officer had a couple of obvious questions. He asked if I had been to the town where the woman claimed she had met me. I have not. Then the officer made clear that he believed this was politically motivated, and said it would not be referred to a prosecutor. Nothing in the forensic interview with the children, which was conducted by trained personnel, had led to concerns.

After the officer spoke, the CPS worker likewise indicated she had not found anything to substantiate the allegation, though her process would take a bit longer to be formally completed. I no longer needed to avoid being around my children unsupervised.

Buttigieg wrote about the horror of the experience for his family in great detail, how he felt an indescribable “mix of rage and sadness” that “someone brought our children into this,” and still “could not understand someone abusing the system like this in order to hurt me and my family.”

“Everyone knows politics is ugly these days,” he wrote. “It’s always been ugly, but now it feels more and more like bloodsport. Cruelty, lies, and even deadly violence have been directed at political figures across the ideological spectrum. Generally everyone agrees this has to stop, even as our country (and public figures) get all too used to it.”

He worries about the “harm” the ordeal has done to his family, with him and Chasten fearing “who else might try to do this kind of thing, to us or to others,” and what effect it might have on his children, who he emphasized again, are only four years old:

They do not know or care what a Democrat or a Republican is. They don’t know how politics works. They don’t know about hate. They should be worrying about what kind of ice cream they’re getting this afternoon, not why they are being brought into a meeting with a grownup asking strange questions or why their Papa is suddenly unavailable to read them a bedtime story. For God’s sake, they are just kids.

Buttigieg noted that making this kind of false report “is a crime…as it should be, both to protect the innocent from false accusations, and to preserve the integrity of a process designed to protect children from harm,” and “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.”

He added that he would continue his advocacy work “supporting and speaking out for causes we believe in, according to our values,” to “continue to stand up against the cruelty and corruption of the people in power today, and I’ll keep making the case for a better future in our country through a better kind of politics.”

“We cannot let American politics keep going in this direction,” he declared. “And we must not all go on as if it’s acceptable for this kind of thing to be part of the cost of entering public service.”

For him and Chasten, being their children’s parents “is the best thing in our lives,” and he concluded by declaring they “will continue to pour ourselves into the joyful and demanding work of raising and educating our two children…kids who deserve the best upbringing that their parents can provide, who mean more to us than anything, whom we love beyond words and will do anything to protect, and whose right to a safe and happy childhood deserves absolute and unconditional respect.”

Read the full post at Substack.

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