US politician Pete Buttigieg has shared that he had to undergo a police and social services investigation after an anonymous individual made allegations of potential child abuse against him.
Buttigieg made history as the first openly gay member of the US Cabinet, serving as Secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration. He has also been widely discussed as a potential future candidate for the presidency. Alongside his husband, Chasten, he is the parent of two young children.
In a Substack post titled A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family, Buttigieg outlined how he had been accused of serious crimes – allegations he believes were politically motivated.
“Someone decided to hurt our family this week,” Buttigieg wrote. “I’m furious, and I want to share what happened.”
He explained that police and child protective services officials in Michigan visited his home after receiving an anonymous report concerning his treatment of his four-year-old twins.
Following the visit, he and his husband were required to spend a night away from their children while the investigation was carried out. The children were placed with their grandparents until a forensic interview could take place.
Buttigieg described the following 24 hours as the darkest of his life.
“Many times over the years, I have been denounced, yelled at, protested, threatened, and heckled. I’ve been through political attacks in office, death threats in public life, and rocket attacks in war. But this is the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began,” he wrote.
He later stated that the anonymous allegation was based on a report from a caller who claimed to have spoken with a woman who, in turn, alleged that Buttigieg had made a confession years earlier in Alabama. Authorities determined that Buttigieg had never been to the town where the alleged conversation was said to have taken place. Following this, and after completing interviews with his children, the matter was dropped.
“Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry about the harm it has done. Chasten and I worry about who else might try to do this kind of thing, to us or to others,” Buttigieg wrote.
