Former United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was briefly unable to see his two children after a false abuse allegation.
“Someone decided to hurt our family this week,” Buttigieg, 44, wrote via Substack on Friday, June 26, claiming that Child Protective Services (CPS) and police officers were recently called to his house. “They explained that there had been an allegation against me, that it concerned our 4-year-old twins, and that a forensic interview had been arranged for the children the following day. I could not be present at the children’s interview, nor could any family member sit in.”
Pete, who shares twins Penelope and Gus with husband Chasten Buttigieg, claimed that he was only allowed to know the nature of the accusation after the kids’ interview.
“I was bewildered and troubled, but tried to stay calm. I’m used to any number of falsehoods, attacks and serious problems being thrown my way,” Pete recalled in his lengthy essay. “What I didn’t understand was what could have led to this kind of visit. Then, the CPS worker told me something that made my stomach turn: I was not to be alone around the children, at least until the interview took place the next day.”
Pete and Chasten’s children stayed the night at their grandparents’ house amid the investigation.
“The 24 hours until they returned are among the darkest hours of my life,” Pete wrote. “I tried to get my head around the idea that I had been accused of something so serious that I couldn’t be alone around my own children and had consented to have them interviewed by strangers, without my knowing where the accusation had come from or even what it contained.”
After Pete’s “sleepless night” away from his kids, he spoke with police and learned that an anonymous caller contacted CPS.
“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,” Pete alleged. “That was all. 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.”
Neither the law enforcement officials nor CPS found evidence to substantiate the accuser’s allegation, meaning that Pete could resume watching his kids “unsupervised.”
“Now, our family is left to deal with the aftermath,” Pete stated in his essay. “I worry about any unseen effects this had on our kids, on Chasten and me and on the rest of our family. 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.”
