\n<\/p>\n
Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, said on Friday an anonymous and baseless accusation of child abuse 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 The social worker and police officer investigating the accusation required Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, to separate themselves from their children for 24 hours. Buttigieg sent their children to their grandparent\u2019s house, he said. The accusation was found to be unsubstantiated and politically motivated, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAn anonymous caller had contacted CPS,\u201d Buttigieg, a possible 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 \u201cI don\u2019t know who did this, or exactly what prompted them to try,\u201d he said. \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 meant to make families like ours feel welcome and safe.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, a spokesperson for the Michigan state police confirmed that the department had received an \u201canonymous report\u201d earlier this week.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, said on Friday an anonymous and baseless accusation of child abuse led child protective services to investigate his family. In a Substack post 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10666],"tags":[3968,2419,20848,7869,1923,605,20784,3432],"class_list":["post-30583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reparations","tag-abuse","tag-allegation","tag-baseless","tag-buttigieg","tag-child","tag-family","tag-investigated","tag-pete"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=21baa52a062acec3aa6ffb21df660e45",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7e5f024e7c00a5457e5e848a8d8ba632f16eac0a\/500_0_5000_4000\/master\/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=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NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Pete Buttigieg, the former US transportation secretary, said on Friday an anonymous and baseless accusation of child abuse led child protective services to investigate his family. In a Substack post 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…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30585,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30583\/revisions\/30585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}